Claymore: Benevolent Darkness
by Dragon-slayer2026
Summary: Clare has been hunting Yoma for a long time, and has never seen them as anything but monsters. But a man named Yura will blur the line between man and monster. Because he is not a man at all.
1. Chapter 1:An Unexpected Compromise

**This story takes place in the time interval between when Clare fights her first awakened being and when she meets Ophelia within the Claymore Anime series. **

**Chapter One **

**An Unexpected Compromise **

"Damn, I hate this wind." The boy had been having a really bad day. First, he got lost. His travelling companion got too far ahead. She found him back, and in an attempt at a shortcut, they tried to cross a river by way of stepping stones. The boy had actually been enjoying his day so far. He had a good breakfast of wild hen eggs and sausage leftover from a successful deer hunt last week, and a nice, leisurely walk through the gigantic conifers that signify this mountainous region.

He couldn't have been much more than sixteen. He had a pleasant face, with a scar over his left temple, and he was simply dressed. A white undershirt, covered by a grey over shirt, banded with leather at the shoulders and neck. He also wore leather shoes, wrist bands and belt. His knee high sock had completed the ensemble. Now all he had were his damp undergarments.

He also had a large sheathed sword set by the river. He wasn't worried about it though. It was high grade steel, and not prone to rust.

That damn wind had caught him on the rocks, and threw him into the water. "Damn, mountain water's cold. Wind only makes it feel worse." A few more minutes of venting, and his closes were dry and his mood was lifted. "At least it's good for something. Dried twice as fast as I expected." The kid liked the mountains, generally. Clean air, great view and a chorus of animal noises unique to those in the flatlands.

Just then, with his attention distracted, the wind picked up to hurricane proportions, sweeping his freshly dried shirt over a stand of thick bushes. He was really starting to lose his taste for the mountains.

"Damn it. No luck at all today." The boy chased after his runaway shirt. It was his only one after all. It was a bit of a struggle through the shrubbery. It looked like it had a few good berries on it. He'd have to remember that for later. Some of the branches were sharp, leaving red scratches across his sides. This wasn't important though. He'd had a rough life, so this was nothing.

He finally managed to push himself through the shrubbery, overbalancing and tumbling headfirst into the ground. He looked up and he was entangled in the limbs, bag and walking stick of a middle aged man.

The man was dressed very oddly. He wore a white silk shirt and pants, elegantly stitched at the seams so as to appear fluffy. His belt, along with his knee length vest was forests green. The vest was open fronted, high collared, and oddly cut at the bottom, with six tails extending from it, reminding the boy of a folded bat wing. All of it was now, unfortunately, dirtied in the fall by the dry soil.

He had a kind face, worn by the elements over the course of a long life. His hair was steel grey, and still thick, despite the large bald spots extending back from above his eyes. More than anything, the boy was drawn to the man's eyes. Bright blue, and as clear as the river from which the boy had dragged himself not long before.

"Hello." Said the man. "Fancy running into a boy like you in a place like this. Is that where this came from?" the man brandished the boy's shirt, just as dusty as the both of them. The boy nodded. "Alright then. Let's get ourselves cleaned up. I have a fire burning a little ways deeper in."

* * *

The boy collected his effects from the riverside, and returned. Less than a minute from where the two ran into each other, the two entered a clearing, surrounded by massive trees. In the middle was a boar, gutted and spitted, roasting over a small fire, just large enough to keep the meat warm.

A stump was set up as a seat for the man, and another was salvaged from a firewood stack for the boy. It was nearing nightfall, but it was still a little ways off.

"Now that we're settled in and dusted off, what's your name?" asked the old man.

"Raki." The boy smiled and extended his hand, and the old man took it firmly and shook it.

"A pleasure to meet you Raki. My name's Yura." The old man released Raki's hand and took a seat by the fire. "Now, what's a young man like you doing alone, so far away from civilization?"

"Travelling," said Raki. "And I'm not alone. I'm travelling with a friend. She was supposed to meet up with me after my clothes dried."

"Ah. Another victim of the river. I had the same problem yesterday, a few miles down stream. Treacherous banks and nasty winds this time of year exacerbating the problem. Now, would you like some of my pig? I had just taken care of some…private business when you ran into me, and after that, I planned on settling down for a meal."

"Sure. It smells great."

Pulling a large knife from his bag, which had been with the campsite when they arrived, Yura cut a large chunk of meat off for Raki, and a smaller one for himself, setting the knife aside a moment later. "I'm headed to the next town. What are you doing out here Yura?"

"I too am travelling. I work at several mobile trades, my favourite of which is a travelling chef. I specialize in meats, everything from venison to reptile. What do you think of my latest work? Its crude, but I didn't bring a large selection of sauces or herbs to work with."

Raki swallowed a large chunk, and balked in surprise. "It's delicious! I've never had anything like it. A little rare for me, but still, the seasoning is incredible. I'm a cook too. Could you tell me your secret?"

Yura closed his eyes, put his hand to his face, laughing with delight. "A few select spices, and a lifetime of practice. I'm glad you appreciate it. As for the rarity of the meat, this is my preference. I would have cooked it more if I'd been expecting to share my meal."

"No worries. It's great. I should save some for Clare. I'm sure she'd like it."

Faster than Raki could watch, Yura spun in his seat just as a silver flash whizzed by his head.

Yuma now faced Raki with only his left side, and he now had the blade of a large combat knife grasped between his fingers. Never once opening his eyes, the jovial smile fading to one of sombre regret, he said "Let me hazard a guess. This friend of yours, Clare. She's about six feet tall, blonde, wears a white suit and cape with shoulder armour. Silver eyes, am I right?"

"Yes what-?"

"I was afraid of that."

A feminine voice gently seeping with malice called out from the woods. "Step away from him." A young woman stepped from the forest. Just as Yura had described, she was beautiful. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and silver eyes. From about the waist up, she was dressed in a white, skin-tight suit, cutting off just below shoulder level.

Going halfway down her thighs was a metal plated skirt. On her shoulders were steel palindromes, connected by another plate of metal. The arms beneath were bare but for the bracers on the wrists, and her neck was covered by a strip of black cloth, with a fork-like insignia emblazoned upon it. From behind the armour hung a small white cape and a sword holster, the holster was now empty as the massive sword was in her hands.

Raki could do little more than stare in shock. What had Yura done? "Why? What's wro-"

"He's a Yoma."

"What. Yoma? He can't be…"

"I can sense his Yoki, faint though it may be. There is no mistake."

Yura slowly began to stand up, calmly and deliberately, shifting his grip on the knife so he held the hilt. "I suppose I am to blame for this. I can normally suppress my Yoki better than that. I have passed your kind in the street before, never drawing a glance. I suppose I let my guard down while conversing with your young companion."

Yura heaved a massive sigh. "Can't be helped now I suppose. I will tell you as I told those few to have previously discovered me. I am no threat to you. Not that you'll listen."

"No I will not. Pleading for your life won't save you." Clare remained cold as ice. Never blinking, never looking away from the creature before her that wore a human skin. "If you need to feed away from the homes of men, where none can threaten you, then you will be no threat to me."

"You are rather cocky, unless I've greatly missed my guess. But what I intended to convey was that there could be a peaceful resolution to this. I am no threat to any man, woman or child. I am innocent of any of the affronts that you target my kind for."

"No Yoma is innocent. And they all have a tendency to lie." Seeing that Raki had retreated to the tree line, Clare attacked. Her first strike was aimed at the Yoma's head. By the time the blade cleared the distance, the head of the demon in a man's skin was not there. He was fast. At least as fast as her.

"I had to kill the last two members of your order that came after me. They left me little choice. I can't suppose that you will respond any differently, can I?" How did he get behind her? She turned to face him. His eyes were now bright gold, with slits for pupils. Teeth all sharpened into fangs before her eyes and some of the skin on his face took on a grey complexion. Ears pointed and elongated, fingernails became claws. With a sigh, he said "If you've no interest in discussion, can we get this over with quickly please, before my meat gets overdone?"

Clair struck again, a cross-body slash. The crash was deafening as the Yoma deflected her sword with the knife that had been thrown at it. The sword blade was sunk a full foot into the ground from the force of the strike. The broken knife blade lay beside it, broken by the clash. The Yoma had only managed to save itself by a margin of inches.

"My turn now." The Yoma struck fast, jabbing the hilt of the dagger into Clare's stomach. She flew through the air, landing a dozen feet from where she began.

By the time she got her bearings, it was already behind her. She twisted fast, swiping downwards. The blade stopped short, caught between two clawed hands.

Clare pushed harder, but couldn't force the blade into the beast's skull. She finally made the choice to release the Yoma power buried inside her. Her muscles swelled, teeth sharpened to fangs, eyes turned from silver to the gold colour like those of the beast against which she struggled. Her blade began to inch closer to the head of her adversary.

When the edge of the sword was only an inch from its head, the Yoma's power exploded. It grew a full foot in height. Now holding her blade in only one hand, a trickle of purple blood running down it, it wrenched the sword aside and punched Clare hard in the chest with a closed fist. A cough of blood escaped her lips.

She flew fast and far, impacting the trunk of one of the trees that ringed the clearing. Again appearing from behind, the Yoma grabbed Clare by her head, and smashed it against the ground. "This is your last chance." It looked more like a man again. It whispered softly and calmly in her ear. "Walk away."

"LET HER GO!" Raki yelled as he ran at the Yoma, his sword held high. Though not nearly so large as Clare's it was still an impressive blade. The Yoma brushed it aside as if it were a mere stick, and knocked Raki a short ways back onto the ground with a kick. His head thumped firmly into the soil.

This gave Clare the chance she needed. Grabbing the broken blade of her knife, she pushed against the ground, and fell back down, creating enough space between her and the creature to jab the broken blade through the clothing that still covered it, and into its gut.

It sprang back in surprise. The two adversaries squared off again. Clare took up her sword. She was getting tired. Was there no way to beat this creature? And for the first time ever, she questioned, just for a moment if she should. It had several chances to kill her, so why didn't it?

Her resolve quickly hardened. Her only hope was to catch it off guard, and given this creature's strength and speed, she could think of only one viable way. Gripping the hilt of her sword tightly, she drew on as much of her Yoma power as she dared, and launched her sword, end over end, straight for the Yoma's heart.

Shocked, the creature barley managed to intercept it in time. The twirling blade sheared down its arm, taking a substantial amount of flesh with it. The blade continued on, imbedding itself deep in the trunk of a large, tall tree growing on the inside of the clearing.

As this transpired, Raki was just recovering from the blow dealt him by the Yoma. He was barley aware as the tree cracked from the split, and began to fall towards him. Injured, disoriented and frozen in fear, he couldn't move.

"Raki! Move! Run, now!" Clare showed emotion for the first time in this battle. She was afraid for the life of her companion and friend. But what could she do?

Claws extending, muscles flaring, the Yoma dashed forward. Clare froze. It headed away from her, and towards Raki.

More than three feet across, the Yoma just barley managed to catch the tree in time. I changed more and more, skin greying, shape expanding. The creature was using as much power as it could muster to stop that tree.

"So what now, mi lady?" it asked, heels sliding in the soil as the tree pressed down on it. "If you want to kill me, you'll never have a better chance than now. But I can't hold this up forever. Make your choice."

Finally decided, Clare dashed forward, wrenching the sword from the tree ,and struck. The Yoma winced in anticipation of the blow. It suddenly felt the weight of the tree lift off its shoulders. It opened its eyes, and saw that the tree had been cut, well above where he held it. The bulk of the tree fell well forward of the trio. The Yoma now easily hoisted what remained of the tree and tossed it to the side.

"Thank you for the assistance," he said, fully resuming his human guise. "I would have truly regretted the death of this child. He needn't have been involved in this. Is he alright, by the way?"

"I didn't do it for you. And he will be fine once his head clears." Clare lifted Raki to his feet, and still seeming hazy, but better that he had a minute ago, he walked as fast as he could over to the side of the battlefield, holding his head and absent mindedly grabbing his sword on the way.

"That's good. And I know you didn't intervene on my behalf. Now, shall we continue where we left off, or as would be my preference, we could share my meal, and we can discuss the predicament in which we find ourselves. Afterwards, we can still resume our battle." Clare noticed that the wounds on the body of the Yoma were already healed.

"I believe that just this once, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, as payment for saving Raki. As Yoma don't truly have names, what may I call you?"

"You may call me Yura."


	2. Chapter 2:The History of Yura

**C****hapter ****T****wo**

**T****he ****H****istory of ****Y****ura**

"Now you see what you've done? The boar is severely overcooked, even for the taste of most people. Waste of good meat." Yura paced around the fire, gently fuming, trying to salvage what good meat he could. Meanwhile, Clare and Raki sat on two of the stumps a short ways away, weapons at hand. They watched him carefully for any hint of malicious intent.

Clare was somewhat disturbed by his presence, or rather the lack thereof. Even the most elusive Yoma left some sense of its Yoki behind, but this creature that called itself Yura left no trace of its presence beyond what was to be expected of a normal human.

They had gone on this way for the better part of an hour. Yura had gone about his business. He wiped off the large carving knife that he cast aside earlier, and pulled a few small leather sacks from his big bag, presumably herbs of some sort. He then proceeded to carve up the boar. He sprinkled it with a few herbs and spices, and set it on a few pieces on a rock near the fire to warm it.

The sun had set, and the fire went out with it. A new one was started to give light and warmth. Raki felt slightly angry at the fact that the forest creatures went on about life as usual, unconcerned with the beast in their midst.

"Damn and double damn. Oh well. Couldn't be helped, I suppose. The shirt you wrecked is a small loss. It wasn't very good quality anyway." Yura, having replaced the shredded white shirt with a silk one, such a light blue as to seem almost white, handed a small portion of pork to Clare, and a larger one to Raki. These portions made up most of the good meat salvaged from the boar. The burnt part was disposed of in the bush, and the badly overdone but not burnt part was destined to become dried travel rations. "Don't worry. I didn't poison it or anything like that. It would be very counter productive after working so hard to end our struggle."

Clare cautiously took a bite of the meat. Though it was overdone, it was still excellent. Raki followed her lead, finding he preferred it no the rare piece he'd begun to eat earlier. In an awkward attempt to converse, Raki asked Yura, in a rather nervous voice "what do you call this, again?" gesturing at the meat.

"At this point, Pork a la Victim." Yura proceeded to pick up his small chunk of boar flesh. "I appreciate the attempt to break the awkward silence, by the way." Yura took a bite of his own piece, nodding in approval. "Hm. Still passable, I'd say. Well, now that the proverbial ice has been broken, we had a few things to discuss did we not?"

"We did," Clare said, staring intently into the eyes of the creature across from her, searching for any hint of deception. "To begin with, how can we possibly trust your word about not eating humans?"

"Technically you can't." Yura's reply was sharp, but tinged slightly with regret. "I have no distinct physical proof of my dietary preferences. Perhaps the lack of a human blood scent on my person. But honestly, if I can hide my Yoki as well as I do, you would have to assume that I could conceal that as well. All you can do is trust my word."

"Unlikely. Yoma need to eat human flesh to survive. You couldn't live without having killed."

"If you were so sure of that, one of us would be dead by now. By the way, Yoma don't need to feed on _human_ flesh. Just flesh. Pig, cow, deer or even rabbit meat will sustain us. Unfortunately, most of my kind don't share my discretion."

"What exactly makes you so special? Why shouldn't Clare just chop off your head like any other Yoma?" Raki, who was silent until now, was furious. How could one of those monsters sit there and pretend to be good, to be human.

Yura looked into his eyes then. The compassion therein only made Raki more angry. "They hurt you didn't they? That tends to happen a lot. All you need to know right now is that I am not like them. If you want to know why, be prepared for a long story. Perhaps it should wait until morning?"

"No. I do not plan on sleeping tonight, not with you around." Clare shot Yura a glance colder than the icy peaks of the nearby mountains. "And if I find I no longer have a reason to keep you in my presence, then I will end your life."

"Very well. Find a comfortable seat, and settle in. It will be a long night." Yura stared off into the sky eyes losing focus in his remembrance. "It began when I was young, only a few years old. And that is farther back than the existence of the two of you put together."

* * *

Even as Yura spoke, telling the tale of his life, the images of that time began to spin through his mind. He was born in the mountains of the north, far from the large cities, but still close enough to civilization to sustain the diets of the less pleasant locals. It was also a region where the mountains dotted with caves for these beings to live in. 

These beings, of course, are the Yoma.

The Yoma of the mountains are very different from those that most know. Most travel the land, living as nomads. They would feed as they moved, staying in one place only for a few weeks at a time. The ones who live like this are the Yoma that most people know and despise. With only very rare exception, these are the men of the species.

The women live in the mountains, feeding off of the sparse residence, who have neither the money nor the means to contact the organization that tries to control the Yoma. The women look little different from their male counterparts, except for being far smaller. They weigh little more than a human, and have proportionally thinner waists and wider hips than their men, as well as most of them can fly, where few males can. This makes the inaccessible mountains an easy journey for them.

As a result of being smaller, they eat far less, so draw little attention from the outside world.

Every so often, an instinct overtakes the men. Not all of them, and very infrequently, but when it does take, it consumes their thoughts more strongly than the need to eat. If it happened more often, there would soon be too many Yoma to be sustained by the human population. Their not being old enough to breed within their first century also helps keep the numbers under control.

But to those in whom this instinct does take, they find themselves inexplicably drawn to the mountains of the north. Other Yoma men find there way there also, but by wilful steps. Either way, the Yoma breed, and mere weeks later, a slimy little wretch is born, looking like nothing so much as a partially digested rat.

The father leaves, back to a life of killing and eating, leaving the mother to care for the child alone. The first two decades of the young ones' lives are spent living in the dank, wet, slimy cavern system that riddled those forsaken mountains.

The mothers lived communally in this network. Not that they lived as a society so much as they just happened to share the same space. Each hunted a different ground and brought human flesh back to their young, the innards being the most nutritious.

* * *

"I never said that I hadn't fed on humans, just that I hadn't killed any. Honestly, for my money I prefer animal flesh. For some senseless reason, my kind seem to think only human flesh is truly sanitary." 

"Do you know why that is?" Almost unconsciously, Raki leaned forward with interest, almost relaxing in the Yoma's presence.

"No, but I have done some research and I have a theory. About two millennia ago, long before even my time, a plague swept through the populations of most animals. They became sickly and weak, but did not die, and humans continued to feed on them. This plague lasted for the better part of a century. I have seen proof of this in ancient human documents. Believe it or not, Yoma are rather sensitive to disease when it is taken in through the stomach." Yura patted his belly to accentuate the point.

"Humans seemed to be utterly unaffected by it. If this disease began to affect the Yoma, weakening or killing them, it could explain why Yoma began to feed singularly on humans, an untainted food source."

Clare found herself having to resist the urge to become engaged in this. She was angry at herself, and at the Yoma, who she still refused to think of by name, for drawing her interest so thoroughly. After killing Yoma for so many years, it seemed only right that she learn why she needed to. "How could such a thing last so long? In my experience among human societies, most traditions tend to fade away after a few years once the need has been removed"

"Tradition is different among the Yoma then among humans. We have a Blood Memory, some of the knowledge and experience of the past generation is given to the next as a part of their very birth. Not much of this is passed, but the most powerful memories and behaviours of the parents are received by the children. A horrid illness from eating animal flesh, and a severe aversion to it, might be one of those things that was passed down."

"If these memories are so powerful, then how do you get around them?" Raki said, thinking that it was odd that a Yoma trying to pass itself off as harmless was stating reasons why Yoma were so dangerous to humans.

"A very good question, my boy. I only know of the Blood Memories from what I was told as I was being raised. I have never experienced them for myself. I believe that is why I was always so different…"

* * *

Once more, Yura slipped into his past. 

His childhood had been a hard one. No Yoma had an easy youth, but his was especially difficult. Most Yoma knew from birth that to survive, they had to fight and steal from the young of other families. Once a Yoma parent gave them what food they saved from a hunt, they were on their own.

The mothers had an understanding with each other. Each cared for their own children, to use the term loosely, and left each other alone. All that the parents really did was bring their children food, and look after their basic safety. Their other parental duties were limited. Mostly they just aided their young in making full use of their blood memories, and left them to their own devices.

Siblings tended to stick together, and perhaps pick up a few other allies, so Yura wasn't truly alone, but his lack of Blood Memory made learning the Yoma lifestyle a slow process.

His twin brother was probably the only reason he survived those early years. While most Yoma could instantly walk, and fight only shortly after, Yura had taken weeks to learn these most basic skills. He was viewed as weak, scowled upon with disdain by the other Yoma. His brother shared his food, protected him and was a light to him in those dark times.

The language of the Yoma would sound vulgar to human ears, though it is rarely spoken outside of the mountain nests. It is made up of screeches, howls bellows and what sounds like hacking coughs. Even the moat vile animal has a more pleasing voice than the one that Yoma use with each other, but Yura never much minded.

No Yoma truly has a name. They are simply recognized by one another by the presence of their Yoki, as they all look nearly identical (like scrawny little humans with pasty grey skin, sharp teeth and claws) until they are in their fifties, and the intended recipient of a conversation is demonstrated by eye contact. All of this took Yura a little while to learn also.

He did eventually get the hang of both. By the time he was five years old, he became exceptionally good at fighting. He learned to do what no other Yoma his age could even begin to conceive, strategize.

Though far from puny by the standards of Yoma, he was still not nearly the largest there. He found himself many a time outnumbered, and on occasion, he found himself in contention with the larger of the Yoma children, those of the year before or even older.

He struck for weak points, such as elbows, knees and throat, putting down assailants in a single punch what others his age couldn't do with a dozen. He hid in the shadows, and waited for the moment to strike, stealing meat without ever having to land a blow, and disappearing before the victim had a chance to see the thief .

Though slower to learn skills beyond what he was born with, Yura's brother soon learned to plan his battles, rather than just lash out on instinct, and in the limited youth community of Yoma, they were unbeatable.

* * *

"Unfortunately, my brother took this concept a little too far. He got it in his head that eliminating other young Yoma would mean more resources for him. Before I knew what he had in mind, he had already snapped the necks of two of our kin." Yura sighed loudly. "It was such a stupid idea. First of, the females were in a murderous uproar. If he had been caught, he would have been killed. Also, fewer young means fewer beings to pilfer from. We had no chance of success against the adults yet. Not to mention the moral implications of such an action." 

"Let me guess," Raki said. "Morals didn't get through to him."

"No it didn't, to my unending displeasure. And it took me three attempts to explain it to him for him to see the error of his ways from a logical perspective."

"You really are different from other Yoma, aren't you?"

"Took you long enough to see it, young Raki. When you don't have raw power, or a killer instinct to drive you, there is very little else to rely upon than intelligence. Maybe the lack of the Blood Memories left more room in my mind for thought, or it was a result of whatever process that left me without those memories. I don't know."

"Even at the point where I started believing that you were a…_good Yoma_…I never expected a philosopher."

"Ah, she speaks! Glad to know that I have your seal of approval."

"For the moment," Clare still couldn't believe that she actually believed the Yura's story, and yet believe it she did. And that she had thought of it by name.

"Well, don't count me out just yet. I wasn't always such a nice guy. There was a brief time when all I wanted was to be like the rest of my kind." Yura let out a massive yawn. "Can we finish this in the morning though? It's long past midnight, judging by the position of the stars, and I haven't slept in days."

"Very well. You may sleep, I will not. Raki, however appears to be exhausted." And as Clare observed, Raki was getting ready to fall from his seat, leaning on his arm and yawning profusely.

"Can I trust that you won't chop me up in my sleep?" It was said more in jest than as a serious question.

"I will not. I gave you a chance to prove your intentions, and you have not betrayed that agreement, and until you do, you will not come to harm by my hand."

"Good." Yura pulled a blanket from his seemingly bottomless bag (in looting it for his herbs, he had laid aside everything from advanced cooking utensils to bolts of fine cloth, presumably to trade), and Raki unrolled a similar one from his bags, and in respective ends of the clearing, with Clare seated between the two, fell fast asleep.


	3. Chapter 3:The Dark Path to Enlightenment

**C****hapter ****T****hree**

**T****he ****D****ark ****P****ath to ****E****nlightenment**

The night passed uneventfully, aside from an utterance from a dream of Yura's that Clare found somewhat disturbing. There were a lot of odd sound and phrases coming from his mouth over the course of that hour in which they occurred, but the one that stood out was something about a "damn drunken monkey."

That incident aside, there was nothing for Clare to concern herself with overnight. Raki woke not long after Dawn, Yura about an hour later, all prerequisite appendages and organs in tact, as promised.

"Good morning," he said groggily, sniffing the air. "Something smells absolutely divine."

"I'm making breakfast." Raki had gotten a fire started, and was cooking happily by it. He had gotten his hands on some fish, which was staying hot on a rock by the fire, and was currently in the process of cooking up some of the left over pork from the night before.

"Ah. I'd been hoping to sample your cooking from the moment you said you were a chef. You seemed to have a good instinct for cooking. Let's see what you've got." Yura approached Raki with rather swift steps, but not aggressive, but rather just efficient.

Raki flinched back for just a moment. Precepts of the Yoma still affected his opinion of Yura, but he was generally accepting of him. He wasn't sure why. He knew he should still be terrified of Yura, but except for a reflexive reaction to sudden movements, he was very trusting of him.

Clare thought she knew why, though. His Yoki. It had initially seemed to be fully concealed, but only the power inherent in it had been hidden, and that is what she had sensed when she had walked in on Yura in the first place.

What she sensed now was of the same origin as the sense of malice and hatred that guided her in Yoma hunts, and was incredibly difficult to locate a Yoma by, but impossible for them to hide. It gave her a general sense that a Yoma was in the area.

This however was not malice. It wasn't so powerful, and easy to overlook, but what she sensed was peace. Either Yura was an excellent trickster, or everything he said was true.

It also explained why she and Raki suddenly felt so at ease in his presence. Around other disguised Yoma, even normal humans felt a sense of unease, though they didn't understand its source. The aura Yura exuded had a similar level of effect, but it caused a sense of comfort. She would have to be careful to avoid being drawn in, just in case.

She looked up from her inner musings to find that breakfast was ready. Raki and Yura each had a fillet of fish and a sizable side of bacon, with Raki also having a sizable chunk of bread. He offered a piece to Yura, who replied "No thank you. You don't have much for yourself, and though I do enjoy the flavour from time to time, I get no digestive value from it."

"Suit yourself." Raki handed Clare a very small piece of each bread, fish and bacon. Not much at all. At this point, Raki knew how much Clare ate in a day.

"Not bad," Yura said, chewing thoroughly, savouring the taste of the fish. "Not bad at all. Took me three decades to get this good. A little more practice, maybe some training, and you could easily make a career as a king's chef."

"You really think so? I thought this one fell a little flat." Raki seemed disappointed in his latest dish. Clare agreed that it was quite good.

"My boy, I worked as the chef to a lesser king a couple centuries ago. He was a picky, crotchety old man, but a good one, and I thought of him as a friend. You could get there eventually, if you wanted it." Yura pointed at Raki to accentuate his next point. "But if you go that route, be sure to find a good king. When my employer's age finally caught up with him, and his son took over, my job became very unpleasant, very quickly."

"What did he do?"

"For starters, while he dined in luxury, the workers got to eat the kitchen scraps. Next he took out his problems on us with his boot, not that it hurt me, mind you, but it was somewhat humiliating. And that was while he was in a good mood."

"If breakfast is over," Clare interjected, "I would like you to finish your explanation of yourself."

"Alright then, I will. As I said last night, there was a time when I wanted to be just like the other Yoma…"

* * *

Yura's life continued as much as it always had until he was roughly ten years old. He and his brother fought and stole for their meals, even as their appetites grew.

By this point in his life, the young Yoma were all about the size of the average human man, and much stronger, almost a match for any of the mothers in the nest.

Yura's memories became much more distinct as they became fresher. All he remembered about his early years were generalities and a few exceptionally powerful events. After age ten, many more of the details remained in his mind. One of the first of these was when he first left the nest.

Though he felt none of this for himself, the other youngsters were getting restless. They felt the need to hunt. Yura experienced this vicariously. He was as exited for his first kill as the rest of them.

One day in mid winter, for no apparent reason, the young Yoma left the nest. Dozens of them burst forth from the cavern entrances littering the mountainside, scattering throughout the hundreds of small towns spread around the outside the mountain range.

Yura went a separate way from his brother. He had wanted to do this on his own, rather than under his brother's shadow. He and one other Yoma, a month younger than Yura was, made their way to a tiny village on the east side. They arrived at sunset.

They centered on a small farmhouse, a short ways outside the town. All it had was an old wooden barn, a couple of grazing fields, and a small vegetable garden next to a rundown old house. As relatively small as they were, they were unlikely to survive if they met a concerted defence by the townspeople. In a farmhouse, however, no one could hear the little humans scream.

The two young Yoma stopped at the peak of a hill near the farmhouse. "Ironic how the cattle raise cattle of their own." The other Yoma simply grunted. They had never gotten Yura's sense of humour. Their jokes were always so crude, and every one of his more sophisticated ones were met with blank stares. "Never mind."

With that, they leapt from the hilltop, covering half of the cattle's pasture in a single bound. Another two leaps, and they crashed in through the thatched roof.

They caught a mother and two children in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal. Yura had seen a man in the fields from a distance. No one was around who could challenge them.

In her fright, the mother knocked over an oil lamp, and soon, the entire kitchen was ablaze. The human family retreated back into the living room, and the younger Yoma pursued, savouring the chase. Yura followed.

The humans walked backwards, eventually running out of room to retreat. The children pressed themselves against the stone of the fireplace, and the mother stood before them, pulling a metal poker form the ashes of the morning's fire.

The Yoma pressed forward even as the flames from the kitchen spread outwards. Yura watched with a degree of pleasure as his companion backhanded the woman, sending her flying against the left wall. "You can have her," said the Yoma. "I want the tender meat."

It was at that moment that Yura's life shifted course. His eyes had locked with those of the children. He saw in them something of himself. The younger brother was clutched in the arms of the older, who protected him fiercely. His brother had done this for him in these early years.

He thought for the first time that maybe humans weren't the mere cattle that he had been led to believe. Their eyes held so much emotion, like the other Yoma, he had never seen that kind of depth in them before. He couldn't bring himself to let die these beings who reminded him so much of himself and his kin.

The other Yoma extended his claws, fixing them into lethal blades. He raised his hand, preparing to strike, teeth glimmering with saliva as he anticipated the meal. He struck, faster than the eye could follow, intending to stab the older one in the gut, slice upwards, and spill the innards for a glorious feast.

But faster was Yura's hand, seizing the wrist mere inches before the claws pierced the child's skin.

In the tongue of the Yoma, as neither knew the human language yet, the other Yoma said to Yura "Oh. So you want the tender meat too? Fine. You can have the little one. He looks stringy."

"Does this seem right to you? Killing the little ones like this?"

"Why not? They are like cattle, existing only to be eaten by us!" This made Yura furious. How could he not see it? There before them was the proof that there was more to humans than they were told. It wasn't right to kill them.

The fire was licking at their heels. The other Yoma was growing impatient. "If you won't eat then get out of my way!"

The Yoma shoved Yura aside, smashing him through the table. The Yoma's attention was once more on the family. Rage boiled over inside Yura, clouding his vision. With a shriek that cracked the windows, Yura leapt at the other Yoma, his still extending claws slammed the young Yoma's back, pushing him through the stone wall, just to the right of where the two children huddled.

By now, the father had returned to the house. Heedless of the two beasts glaring at each other only feet away from the hole in the wall, he crawled into the inferno. The children left the house as their father went in, and he soon exited as well, dragging the unconscious but breathing body of his wife behind him.

Yura let himself experience a moment of gratitude. He had saved them, these creatures that he wanted to understand. Given away by a shift of the eyes, that moment's distraction was all the other Yoma needed.

He struck, claws spayed wide, ignoring the shallow wounds on his back, hoping to quickly eviscerate the one that challenged him. Rage gone, Yura could think clearly. Rather than dodge or deflect the attack, Yura caught it on his arm. Claw pierced flesh, and Yura winced against the pain, but he had his enemy right were he wanted him.

Yura twisted his arm hard, snapping all of the claws off of the hand. "I don't want to hurt you!"

"No? But I want to _kill_ YOU!" He charged again. Yura twisted his arm hard, jabbing the protruding claws imbedded in his arm into the stomach of his foe. He pushed hard on the broken ends, forcing the claws out of his arm, and further into the young Yoma's belly, a damaging but not lethal wound.

Snarling and slobbering, all reason forgotten, the younger Yoma attacked. Yura parried his strikes, blocking high and low, deflecting the full claws and letting the broken ones glance off his skin.

He returned blows too. He struck for the joints. A blow to the knee that felled many an infant in previous years didn't even slow his blood-crazed adversary. Yura struck the knee again, collapsing if for just a moment before it recovered.

The blows continued to rain down on him. Yura blocked, parried and dodged to the best of his ability, but he was getting hurt, and slowing down. A blow to the face left four gashes through his skin, and sent him reeling back into the hot stone wall of the farmhouse. The flames licked at his shoulder through the hole in the wall.

Sensing victory, the enraged Yoma charged, in-tact claws ready for the death blow. It was in this moment that Yura learned the natural law of kill or be killed. For the first time in his life, he fully unleashed his claws. He leapt forward hard and fast, and swept his hand across the other Yoma's face.

Yura landed far behind his opponent. The younger Yoma turned, snarling to face Yura and cried "Damn you bast-" his condemnation was cut short, his face draining of color, and taking on a blank expression.

Yura's claws, unused in his years within the nest, were so sharp that they sliced straight through the younger Yoma's skull without disturbing anything within, so sharp that the brain continued to function for just a moment. A drop of violet blood dripped from Yura's fingertip, and the other Yoma's head fell apart, a piece for each claw on Yura's right hand. The body dropped to the ground shortly after.

Yura stood over the body of his fellow Yoma for a moment, contemplating what he had just done. He felt sick, and not just because he would never be allowed back into the nest after this.

He knew then that even if he were allowed to return, he could never go back to the lifestyle that he had grown up with. He turned and walked away, leaving a full decade before any Yoma is meant to.

He looked back only once, and saw the family of humans he had saved from death, and his young heart lifted. They stared back at him, not understanding what they had just witnessed.

* * *

"What did you do after that?" Raki asked as he absent mindedly stuffed his pack, and rolled up his sleeping mat.

"That is another long story in its entirety. I'll summarize it for you. I walked for several days, passing several human towns, giving them a wide berth despite my starvation. One day, out of desperation, I caught and ate a rabbit, and found it quite palatable. I lived like that for a few months, and then out of curiosity, started watching humans in their towns at night.

"A common misconception about Yoma is that they need to kill a human to take human form. I have observed that it is far easier to do that way, but not truly necessary. In my studies of humans, I learned how to speak like them, and how to disguise myself as one of them, without the need to kill them, mind you. I picked the image of a ten year old, mixing traits that I observed in several different children to create a unique image."

"Is that when you chose the name Yura?"

"Yes, Raki. And I have used that name ever since. As for the rest of my life until now, it was rather uneventful in general. In self defence, I had to kill two of Clare's people over the past few centuries. She can guess how those fights went. One event that I still have trouble believing was that, a long time ago, I fell in love."

Clare and Raki both gaped in disbelief "With a human?!" Raki said, dumbstruck.

"You seem surprised." Yura simply laughed into his hand, staring at the expressions on their faces.


	4. Chapter 4:Engagement on the Road

**C****hapter ****F****our**

**E****ngagement o****n**** the ****R****oad**

"I didn't know you could make that expression Clare." Yura seemed to find the stunned look on Clare's face very amusing.

"You said that in jest, then?" Clare was slightly upset. She took his behaviour at her and Raki's reaction to mean that he said what he did to get that response.

"Not at all. But you do make a very funny face when you're shocked." Yura tried very hard to stifle another round of laughter. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll give you the basics. Though the specifics of this should probably wait for another day."

"Agreed. We have been here too long already." Clare was getting impatient. It was well into the morning, approaching noon. She had hoped to meet up with her contact with the organization in a few days, but she wouldn't make that appointment anymore.

Not that it mattered. Any number of things could delay travel, so a couple of days delay would go unquestioned.

"Let me begin, then." Yura smiled with happy memories. "As the years go by, I change the appearance of my disguise to appear to age, and every sixty years or so, I orchestrate an approximation of my own death, and begin a new life in the image of a young man, about twenty or so, and move on to a place where no one would know my name.

"Her name was Melanie. I met her in my first life, not long after I first took human form. We were the same age at the time, and were workmates before anything else, and she became my first human friend. We worked as simple labourers. I understood that work was needed to live amongst humans, and we first linked up as a matter of convenience, as young Yoma did with each other, but without the violence.

"I helped her appear to do more than she did, not that she did little, but me, being what I am, had energy to spare, and she shared the spoils of that."

Yura laughed at that, not in humour, but from the remembered elation of the time. "I learned of kindness from her, and learned to reciprocate it. We became good friends quite quickly.

"A decade later, we married, and the next twenty years of my life were very happy. There was a short break in that when she found out I was a Yoma, but let's not get into _that_, if you don't mind. That splitting did rectify itself within a year, and we were happy until old age finally claimed her, at eighty five."

"Did you have any…kids?" Raki looked both curious and disgusted with that concept.

Yura looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Do you think it would even be possible, hm?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Well, there you go. The rest of my life was spent reasonably well, but never matching up to that first period. Some of it was spent in one place, where I made friends, worked as an employee, or invested and became an employer. Other times were spent travelling as I am now."

Yura sighed. "Not all of the travelling was good. I had several encounters with bandits, and as I mentioned before, I managed to beat them all off without fatalities. I also met a few of your people, Clare"

Out of respect, Yura avoided using the term "Claymore" whenever possible. In their organization, the half Yoma, half humans that hunt Yoma are known by name and ranking amongst their own ranks. "Claymore" was a term created by the commoners who feared them. The name was based on their large swords. Some of Clare's people were offended by the term, so it was best to not use it.

Yura continued. "Some discovered that I am a Yoma. Over the centuries I managed to escape three, and had to kill two lest I be killed myself. I still feel bad about that, but I have gotten better at hiding my Yoki since then."

"So I've noticed." Clare continued to sit patiently, but her impatience was becoming evident.

"Moving on, I took a special interest in cooking when I was young, and that career was a mainstay for me more than anything else. I was surprised to find that cooked meat is generally just as good for me as raw, and better tasting most of the time. Though, I do need some fresh, raw meat on very rare occasion, or I start suffering malnutrition.

"In fact, I just got off a job as a chef before I met you. Was thrown out, more like it. Sad but funny story there, a young child came into the kitchen, and asked to try some of the food. I gave him a small piece of meat, and wouldn't you know it, he started choking."

"Was he alright?"

"Oh yes, yes no need to worry. I popped the meat out of him before he died, but not before he passed out. He was breathing after I got the meat out of him, and in my relief, I hugged the boy, and patted him on the back.

"Just my luck, the family walked in then, thought I was trying to abduct him, and before I could get a word in, they were up in arms, and chased me out of town." Yura chuckled in embarrassment. "A couple days of walking, and I ran, quite literally, into Raki. And that concludes the story of my life."

"That was pretty unfortunate." Raki had actually heard something about this in town. He heard a man complaining about a chef who got driven out of town. He thought it sounded very odd, but gave it little more thought.

"Yes, it was. I'm not going back there for a _long_ time. Now, to the question at hand. Do we move on, go our separate ways, or do you feel it necessary, Clare, to continue where we left off yesterday evening?"

Everyone tensed at the question, including Clare. She was supposed to kill Yoma wherever she encountered them, especially when it was a request. No one had requested Yura's death, but he was still a Yoma, wasn't he?

And there she found her answer.

"As it relates to the organization, I would not classify you as a Yoma. Though you share the same origin and form, your behaviour leaves room for some interpretation on that definition. I will not kill you now, but if the organization were ever to order your death, I will have to accept that."

"Fair enough. Now, out of curiosity, where are you headed?"

"A small city called Charrow." Raki said. "Clare has a request to take care of there."

"Well, it seems we needn't part ways so soon after all, if you don't mind of course. I'm headed to the same place." Yura smiled broadly. He hadn't had company this pleasant in a long time, and was pleased that they had opportunity to travel together.

Better yet, he had no need to hide his nature from them. He never acted strongly against his nature, but even so, playing the part of a small, vulnerable human got tiresome after a while.

"I don't have a problem with it," said Raki. "But it's really up to Clare."

Clare thought about how to phrase the next sentence carefully. Letting Yura live was one thing, but taking him on as a travelling companion was something else.

She didn't mind. She hated to admit it but she was starting to like Yura. The organization, however, might not forgive her that action. "Given your nature, I can't condone your travelling alongside us, but I can't stop you from travelling the same road."

"I understand, and that's good enough for me. On to Charrow, then?"

Clare nodded. "On to Charrow."

* * *

It took the crew a little while for the crew to pack up. Yura had to finish packaging the boar, and Raki needed to pack up his own cooking supplies and bedding. Clare just had to sheath her sword and start walking.

By noon, the crew was packed up, and on the move. Clare was in front, and Yura and Raki walked a little bit behind, discussing cooking techniques. Raki learned several interesting recipes, and Yura was surprised to have learned a few tricks from Raki too.

Eventually the terrain changed, and conversation died off, and the only sounds the group made were their footfalls, and the tapping of Yura's walking stick.

As they left the mountains faded into the distance, and sparse forests and grasslands took their place, Raki and Yura just ran out of interesting conversation, and Clare still didn't want to talk to Yura yet as a matter of principle.

Though she did keep some reservations, Clare had quickly gotten over feeling entirely distrustful or Yura. She had never been much of a conversationalist anyway. By sunset, the three were simply walking in companionable silence.

They settled down for dinner just a little ways off the road, but within sight of it. The sun was just touching the horizon. Dinner was simple that night. Leftover pork and fish heated over the fire was all that was available.

"No luck today. A long walk and not a thing came up worth cooking. A rabbit or some sort of edible root would have been nice. We didn't even find a game hen."

"It's not so bad, Yura. At least the leftovers are still good." Raki tore a big chunk off of his meat and started chewing.

"There is that at least. I had the pig's innards a few days back, so I won't need raw flesh again for a couple weeks."

Raki grimaced slightly. "That seems wrong, to me, eating raw meat. Especially if it's the guts."

"Ha, you really think so? What do you think they wrap sausages in? A length of pig intestine is what." Yura shrugged. "And humans can't process raw meat very well, so it's only natural that you find it distasteful. But marinated in a nice broth, uncooked meat takes on a lovely texture and flavour. I'll prepare a bit for you once we reach the next town."

"Sounds…great." Raki and Yura pulled out their sleeping mats, and Clare, tired from not having slept the previous night, plunged her sword tip into the ground, and rested her back against the flat side. The trio quickly fell asleep.

* * *

They slept to just past dawn, and were awakened by the sound of hoof beats, just out of sight. The rattle of armour quickly followed it as the horseman approached.

The man rode a large brown horse, plated with armour on the head and flanks. The rider whore no helmet, and had shoulder length black hair. His face was wide, with a squashed nose from several breakings and a long scar from his left cheek to his chin.

His armour was shiny, but pitted from impacts. He had bracers on his forearms and a solid plate of metal over his chest and back. It was well constructed, but looked self-made rather than professional. Under the armour was a simple brown leather outfit.

"Well, well well. What have we here? A kid, an old man and a silver-eyed witch. Fancy stuff all around." The man drew a long, curved sword from a weather beaten scabbard on his left side, and swept the tip back and forth in the direction of the group. "Hand it over, and you live."

Yura heaved a tired sigh. "I hate bandits. Always so cocky, especially first thing in the morning." Yura yawned, and stretched. He then reached down and picked up his old, gnarled walking stick.

"Now listen, I have a proposition for you." Yura pulled a small pouch from the inside of his jacket. He tossed it in the air, and caught it. The pouch made the distinctive sound of jingling gold. "This is about the money you'd get off any other group of travelers. Take it and go, and I won't ask my friend with the oversized sword to bisect you."

"Nice try old man, but I know all about those silver-eyed witches. They can't kill people without getting killed themselves. And that kid looks like he can barley lift his sword. Now, if you're ready to give that much money up easily, you must have plenty more." The bandit pointed his sword at Yura. "Cough it up."

"Alas, I've been found out." Yura grabbed his walking stick with both hands apparently intent on using it like a staff. "But I'm still not giving you my things. My best cooking supplies are in that bag."

With that Yura attacked. He ran right at the armoured bandit. The man swung his sword at Yura, who simply ducked under it, and continued past, running around the horse. He raised his staff high, and struck the horse on the backside.

The animal tore off, straight at a rotten stump in the ground. The horse jumped, and the rider found his face in contact with an overhanging branch. He was knocked into a back flip, and landed face down in the dirt.

Yura slowly twirled his staff in front of him, smiling as he said "The money is still on the table. You can just take it and leave."

The bandit just scowled as he staggered to his feet, grabbing his sword on the way up, putting the tip in the ground to brace himself. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled loudly. Moments after, half a dozen men walked out of the bushes. They were all dressed in simple leather outfits in varying degrees of disrepair. They all had scars on their faces.

Two twin men with rodent-like faces carried short bows, and three shabby-looking, unshaven men carried daggers and small swords. There was a giant of a man carrying a large, double sided battle axe. Yura looked at them cynically as the bandit leader said, "What do you say to that old man?"

"Now that does complicate things a bit," Yura said. "I was hoping they'd stay out of this. Now, if I beat them all senseless, who's going to carry you back to your camp? Or are you so cheap that you nest in holes in the ground?"

Raki drew his sword, and got ready to fight off the bandits. Several of them looked away from Yura and focused their eyes on Raki, thinking a sword in any hands was more of a problem than a stick.

Clare said, with a note of annoyance in her voice, "Don't hurt them."

"Too late for that, witch." The bandit leader scowled, spitting blood from his mouth, a side effect of the branch in the face. "Your pal's pissed me off, and the kid looks ready to do the same."

"First off, Raki is going to sit this out." Yura looked meaningfully at Raki, who sheathed his sword. Yura nodded, "Good. Secondly, she wasn't talking to you."

Yura dashed towards the man on the right, a scrawny man who with a patch over one eye, armed with a pair of daggers and a belt of throwing knives. He swung downward at Yura with both blades. They were easily deflected, one by Yura's staff, and the other by his bare hand.

The knife wielder found a nearly inhumanly strong fist in his face, knocking him into the dirt. The butt end of the staff struck him in the stomach, ending his part in the battle.

Yura turned quickly on his heel, and with a single full rotation of his staff, Yura blocked two arrows from the buck-toothed men near the rear of the bandits. He ran right past the others, ignoring them to deal with the bowmen. They fired another arrow each before dropping their bows in favour of short swords.

Yura ducked under a horizontal swipe, and came within inches of the bandit's body. He thrust his staff straight up into the first man's face, putting him out cold. He used the momentum of his attack to sweep the legs out from under the other man, and kicked in the head, putting him out too.

"This is rather sad," Yura said, shaking his head. "I would have thought you could at least provide a challenge with these numbers. Who taught you to fight? My grandmother could outfight the lot of you, and she's been dead for longer than I've been alive, and trust me, that's a long time."

A giant of a man stomped forward in fury, raising a massive axe over his head. He struck down and hit Yura's upheld staff, but amazingly, the staff wasn't cut. The axe didn't even scratch it. The impact shook the big mans arms as if he'd just struck a rock, but he managed to hold on to the axe.

"Surprised? This staff is very special. I'm not sure what kind of tree it came from, but it grew in an area rich in metal ore, and absorbed a large amount of those materials." He nodded in Clare's direction. "It came from the mine where the remarkable, nearly unbreakable metal that forms their swords is taken from," Yura motioned towards Clare with his head. "So it, like any of their swords, is nearly unbreakable."

Yura, never having broken a sweat in the clash of weapons, angled his staff, letting the axe slide down it in a shower of sparks, and kicked the man in the groin. "You didn't deserve to bear children anyway." The man grunted and keeled over sideways.

Only three men remained on their feet, the bandit leader, and a pair of twins, wielding long, thin swords. A knife flew from the bushes. Yura twisted slightly and caught it in his outstretched hand. "Wondered when you'd join in." Yura threw the knife back in the direction it came from. A loud crack emanated from the shrubbery, and a very bony man collapsed, the imprint of the knife handle between his eyes.

The twins turned tail and ran. "Cowards!" their leader yelled in disgust. Yura ran at the man, striking down with his staff, cracking the bandit leader's wrist and knocking his sword aside. Yura lifted the bandit leader off the ground by the metal collar on his armour.

"Now, this could have gone much better." Yura let the most minute amount of his Yoki slip out, just enough to get his eyes glimmering malevolently, but not enough to give him away. "You will not bother us again. ARE WE CLEAR!?" The last words were deafening, carrying a deep, ferocious rumble.

"Y-yes sir."

Yura dropped the man, slightly altered features reverting to normal. "Good. Now get lost."

The bandit leader ran off into the woods, leaving his battered but not seriously injured comrades behind.

"You all right Yura?" Raki asked, not seriously, but seeming rather amused. He was amazed at the skill Yura had displayed. He had beaten off eight bandits on skill alone. The only ones against whom he had displayed a hint of his true strength were the big man with the axe, and the bandit leader.

Yura looked himself over, snarling in annoyance as he saw the holes in his jacket, made by the throwing knife that he had caught earlier. "No I'm not alright. One of the bastards ripped my jacket. It was expensive too. It was worth it though I suppose. I haven't had that much fun in years."

One of the bandits had come to, and was reaching hesitantly for a sword. Still smiling, Yura kicked him in the ribs for good measure. The bandit grunted, and lay still again.


	5. Chapter 5:Bright Heart Born of Darkness

**C****hapter ****F****ive**

**Bright H****eart ****B****orn of ****D****arkness **

"Well, would you look at that? Those men were kind enough to leave us some supplies." Yura, Raki and Clare had breakfast before moving on, ignoring the prone forms of the unconscious bandits. By the time they were done, the last of them had scampered off. In their haste, not one of them had bothered to grab their stuff.

Clare sat by, resting her back against her sword as her companions began looting the bandit's abandoned items.

Yura had found a large supply of dried foods, crude but he could do something with them. Raki found a good amount of jewellery, several money pouches and an ornate dagger. Raki weighed the money pouches in his hands and said "They must have been pretty successful bandits to get a hold of this kind of money."

"No doubt. They had almost as much money at hand as I do." Yura received a cold stare from Clare as he began rooting through another bag. "What? They tried to rob us, and turnabout is fair play after all."

They threw the discarded weaponry in the bushes and started walking, bags much heavier than when they had woken up. They walked for about an hour when a crashing sound in the undergrowth startled them. The brown horse that the bandit leader had ridden jumped from the shrubbery, and stopped in front of them on the road.

"Will wonders never cease?" Yura approached the beast, and took hold of the reigns. "A beast of burden lands itself in our laps. Come on Raki. Load up your bags."

It was an impressive animal. It was bred from warhorse stock, and had the appearance of being somewhat mistreated. The rich brown coat was coarse and unkempt, it was in desperate need of a shoeing, and it was slightly skinnier than a horse should be.

Within five minutes, Yura and Raki's bags were tied to the saddle, and Raki sat calmly in the saddle. It was interesting for him, as he had never ridden a horse before. "I'll lead it by the reigns." Yura had asked while they were tying their stuff if Raki had any riding experience. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride." The troupe began walking again. Yura and Clare increased their pace, no longer needing to worry about Raki falling behind. At this rate, they would reach Charrow by nightfall.

* * *

Miles away in a dark, damp ground level cave, a rag-tag group of men sat around a fire, grumbling and nursing scrapes, bruises and other minor wounds. The group of eight bandits were more demoralized than anything. How could they have been beaten off by an old man with a walking stick?

"What do we do now boss?" One of the henchmen asked, staring at his hands. "They took all our stuff. We got nothing left."

"Here's what we're going to do. There's a town a little ways off. We got our weapons back, so we're going to burn it to the ground, make up our losses. Charrow is a rich target."

"What about the old man? He's probably going to be there." The big man still couldn't walk quite right after that vicious kick. He sat at the back of the group. "You saw how he fought. He wasn't human."

"Of course he was. Probably a master fighter in his day, is all. We weren't ready for him, but we will be next time." The bandit leader took the scrap of Yura's coat from his pocket, clenched it tightly in his fist, and threw it in the fire.

The daylight shining through the entrance was cut down to a sliver. "You have his stench on you." A deep, rumbling voice echoed from the shadows of the entrance. "Is he the one you hate?"

"If you mean the old man, then yeah, I hate his guts." The bandit leader was trying to act tough, but inside, something about that voice and shadow terrified him, deep to his core. His men were cowering towards the back of the cave.

"Good. Then we will find vengeance for us all." The voice dropped in pitch, taking on a feral tone that sent shivers running down the bandit's spine. "You can also help us in another way."

Other figures crowded the entrance. Now, with the sunlight gone and the firelight illuminating the entrance, revealing grey, warped human-like faces, set with golden eyes and razor sharp teeth, eight mouths grinning in anticipation of fresh meat.

* * *

The nearly inhuman, animalistic screams of terror and pain that emanated from that cavern would have sent terror running into the heart of the most hardened warrior. But here, in the middle of the forest, no one could hear the screams.

* * *

By sundown, Yura, Raki and Clare had reached the outskirts of Charrow. It was a small city, but well renowned for its architecture. They were stopped for a moment near the entrance of a large horse ranch.

"I say we pull in here for the night." Yura had been walking all day, and Raki had stayed in the saddle. Despite the aching in his thighs and sores on his backside, Raki hadn't complained, as his walking would have reduced the pace.

"That's not an inn. It's a ranch. They don't just let anyone come in and spend the night in places like that."

"I disagree, Raki. They'll let us in. After all, I own the place."

"Really? I thought you lived as a travelling chef?"

"Indeed I do, but that's mostly for fun. I have investments and ownerships in so many businesses that I have a hard time keeping track of them all, and drop in on most of them during my travels. I plan on dropping off the horse here. He'd make good breeding stock." Raki seemed disappointed with that. He was secretly hoping to keep the horse.

Yura, guessing Raki's thoughts, smiled chidingly. "Now Raki, could you really take care of him, given your and Clare's low income and nomadic lifestyle? I think not. I'll have him saved for you, should you ever settle down, agreed?"

Raki nodded happily, and got off the horse. The trio began walking down the path to the ranch house. A wiry man about a decade younger than Yura appeared to be, with black hair came out to greet them. "Hello Myles." Yura greeted the man with a broad smile.

"Good evening Master Yura. Haven't seen you in a while."

"Good to see you too Myles. It's been too long. My guests and I will be spending the night, and maybe a few days, depending on how their work goes. Could you and your wife perhaps prepare a room for us? And find a place for this lovely horse here?"

"Will do sir. Should we have Jeremy prepare some dinner?"

"No thank you my friend. I think I'll handle dinner. It's the least I can do for you taking care of things for me. And you've been taking your share of the profits, and paying the workers as usual?"

Myles took the reigns of the horse. "Yes I have been, sir. And I'm glad to hear you'll be making dinner. We're all decent cooks here, but nothing compared to you." Myles then began walking the horse to the nearby barn.

Clare looked at Yura quizzically. "I wouldn't have expected someone like you to own a business."

"There are two ways a being like me can survive in this world. I could make a hermit of myself, live in a cave somewhere and live off the wildlife, or I could live among the people, and make my way as they do." Yura smiled. "You can guess which I chose. With a life as long as mine, owning and working in several businesses keeps me from getting bored. I also turn a handsome profit. And I am happy to note that you said 'someone' as opposed to 'something'."

* * *

Dinner was fabulous. Raki found that Yura was being honest about marinated raw meat being delicious. There were also various types of fish, small delectable portions of poultry and that was just the appetizer. The main course consisted of large sides of beef, potatoes and garden vegetables, cooked and seasoned to perfection. It was followed by dessert, a pie baked by Myles's wife and daughter. It was the most elaborate meal that Raki had ever seen.

The ranch house was small, but elegant. The supports were carved wood, with stonework in between. There were four bedrooms, one for Myles and his lovely wife, Elena, another for their three children, Jeremy, Michel and Elizabeth, and finally two for guests. Jeremy was only a little younger than Raki. Mitchell and Elizabeth were of similar age to each other, both less than ten and maybe a year apart in age.

Elena was a lovely woman for her age. She was in good shape, and grey had only begun to creep into her sandy blonde hair. Jeremy looked almost exactly like a younger version of his father, while Elizabeth took after her mother. Conversely, Mitchell looked a great deal like his mother, but with shorter hair and a stronger jaw.

They all seemed to view Yura as a member of the family. They talked boisterously, and were very friendly. The children even referred to Yura as an uncle.

The whole family liked Raki instantly, and though Clare wasn't much for conversation, they did get over the general concern that most people tend to have with her people. This was in part from Yura's confidence in her, and the fact that she was there to rid the town of its Yoma problem. They talked a bit. Just enough to understand that Clare led an unpleasant life, and they politely stopped trying to talk to her.

The family was doing well. They sold a large shipment of war horses to a nearby city, and were making large profits for themselves and Yura. Elena was just starting to show signs of another pregnancy.

They also updated Yura on the status of the other employees. They lived in town, and spent the night there, working during the day.

Yura boisterously regaled them with the tale of the bandits on the road, downplaying his part and claiming Raki did his share of the fighting, just to hide his superhuman abilities. "They hardly seemed like bandits, to be honest. They were scrawny vagabonds at best."

Yura laughed gently. "I hardly needed Raki's help. I swear, young Elizabeth here could have handled them just as fairly." Everyone seemed amused at that.

"How did you meet Yura?" These were the first unprompted words that Clare had spoken.

Though no longer afraid of her, the family still felt uncomfortable around Clare. Myles hesitantly responded. "I met him about twenty years ago. We've been good friends for most of that time. I met him as I was trying to rob him."

"What?" Raki scowled at that. "That doesn't make any sense. How do you rob someone, and then become friends?"

"It wasn't a robbery for profit. It was for survival. I was starving on the street. He took my knife, kicked the snot out of me, and then bought me a meal. You don't find that kind of compassion in the world very often." Yura smiled at Myles's story.

"We talked a bit. I told him that I had worked at a horse ranch for most of my young life. I had done well at it, but the owner died of old age, and all of his workers were left in the street, including me. On the spur of the moment, Master Yura bought the ranch and put me in charge, if you can believe it. I met my wife there, and had my kids in this house. That about sums it up"

Wow. I had no idea he was that rich, or that nice."

Elena smiled broadly. "He's both. I don't know where we'd be without him. He drops by pretty regularly, and we all think of him as a member of the family."

Elena had Elizabeth take Yura's ripped coat, and promised it would be repaired by tomorrow night at the very latest.

With that, everyone went to bed.


	6. Chapter 6:Shadows of Evil

**C****hapter ****S****ix**

**S****hadows of ****E****vil **

"I have some things to attend to in town, catering for a nobleman. My friends also have business, albeit of a different sort." Yura had woken bright and early that morning, for once. Without his coat, he just wore his boots, a blue silk shirt and brown leather pants. Raki and Clare were already up. They had all shared a small breakfast of eggs and bread, prepared by Raki and Myles. Simple but elegant.

"Watch yourself Yura. The reports say there are at least three Yoma in town."

"I will Elena, don't worry. They wouldn't dare strike in the daylight, especially with Clare in town. We'll be fine." With that, Yura, Raki and Clare departed.

* * *

On the edge of town, three figures silhouetted against the mourning sun rose over the nearby hilltops.

They rode horses of radically different size and colour, a mottle coated one that was practically a pony, a black thoroughbred and a brown and white draft horse. This variety was likely a result of the horses having come from different sources, rather than any kind of preference.

The middle one snorted in derision. "I hate these creatures. Why do we need them anyway?"

"They complete the image." The one on the right rode the massive draft horse, and spoke with the loudest voice. "We want to ransack the place first. If some escape, all they'll know is that there was a bandit raid. We can do as we please after that, even if we don't find _him_. We can't afford to be found out right now. After the raid, the others will join us from the other towns."

"Good. I'm getting hungry."

* * *

The catering job went smoothly, but not as enjoyable as he was used to. He still enjoyed working with the other chefs, and creating something, in contrast to his kind's destructive nature. But the people were such snobs. What one liked the others despised.

The meal was either too cold, to spicy, too mild. The general guest population loved it, but the highest echelon of that group could not be pleased, which is why some of them found large insects hiding beneath their dessert plates.

Yura just pleaded his innocence in the matter, accepted his full payment, ignored the sneers and glares of the hosts, and took in the laughter of the crowd, inspired when the lady of the manor appeared to go completely insane when a cockroach crawled from her cake, and left.

Clare and Raki fared little better. Clare felt the presence of at least one Yoma, but couldn't pin it down to any single location. Raki had enjoyed his day. Charrow was a lovely city. Many of the buildings were very old, and well maintained. Most of the structures were stone, and a number of those were decorated with elaborate pillars and stone carvings. Raki had also never before seen trees growing in such even rows before in the middle of the street.

As planned, Yura met up with them in the center of the market. It was halfway between noon and sundown, the busiest time of day. Merchants were selling out of everything from makeshift wooden stands to windows opening from the stone buildings. Yura intended to do some buying, and Clare hoped to find the Yoma hiding in the crowd.

An hour went by, and Clare had no luck in her mission. She had a harder time than usual sensing Yoki. She thought maybe Yura was disrupting her senses with his presence. She would have to make sure to leave him behind next time.

Though she had no luck, Yura had plenty. He brought his bag along, but all of the things that had formerly filled it were stored at the ranch. By the time the sky began to shift colour at the horizon, Yura's bag was nearly full, and Raki's was slightly weighed down too. Yura had bought over a dozen jars of herbs, several types of meat and fish, and a great number of trinkets, such as a luck charm, all of which Clare thought of as self indulgent.

Raki had picked up some cooking equipment, a whetstone to sharpen his sword, and he too bought a few useless trinkets, one of which was a wooden carving of a Claymore.

"Not a bad day, in my mind." Yura smiled, shifting his bag on his shoulder. "A few interesting developments in my catering job, and a number of very good deals in the market. Tonight, we feast. I have plans for a large roast and a…do you smell smoke?"

On the eastern end of the town, along the market road where the buildings were newer, and made of wood, there was indeed smoke rising off the buildings. Moments later, screams could be heard, and a tide of retreating people could be seen at a distance.

The tide soon reached them, and the hysteria spread to the entire market. Yura reached into the panicking masses, and with a grip of iron pulled out a terrified young man. "What's going on here?"

"Bandits. Three of them. They rode in on horses. The town militia was cut down like nothing, and they started burning things."

"Bandits, hm? What do they look like?"

"There are two identical ones, and a giant with an axe." With that, Yura released the terrified young man.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Raki asked.

"If you think these are the same group of miscreants, then we are indeed of the same mind. I knew I should have hit them harder." Yura looked puzzled. The three began to gently push their way against the flow of screaming humanity. "Why only the three of them, and how on earth did those morons beat the town militia? There were well over a dozen of them at every end of town."

By the time they reached the scene of the commotion, the fires had spread through all of the wooden buildings, finally stopped by a barrier of inflammable stone. One wooden building was set farther in, and it had caught fire by way of stray sparks. The structure was already well and truly burning, the support beams cracking as thee fire weakened them.

People were being herded like cattle into the wide street by the twins, still riding their horses. The giant man was standing at the head of the street, using his axe to cut down several innocent people at a time as they scrambled out from the between the stone buildings. They arrived just as the giant swung his axe across the midsections of a group of five terrified men, bisecting them all.

Many escaped down the street, but many more found their blood staining the flagstones red. The massive barbarian licked his lips as the blood spattered his leather armour.

As the twins made exited the shadow of the buildings, and entered the square, the building that burned amidst the stone collapsed. The people headed its way stopped short, so none were crushed, but now they were trapped between the fire and three vicious warriors. Fortunately, there were now wolves mixed in with the sheep.

The bandits moved in, crowding the crowd closer and closer to the fire. The giant raised his axe, and just as he swung it at the head of a young girl, Yura stepped in and stopped the axe with his staff. The blow landed solidly, sliding Yura back several inches against the cobblestones.

"This is the second time in two days that I've had to stop your axe. You boys need to find yourselves a hobby."

"Ah, you. This one remembers you." The man licked his lips again, smiling in delight, eyes flashing in the firelight. "Are you the one that _he_ seeks?"

"You're not the same man I fought before are you?" Yura twisted the axe aside and jumped back.

The twins dismounted, and the giant abandoned his axe. They began to swell, features remaining human, but twisted into animal snarls. Their clothing tore around them even as their hair thinned and turned white, skin became grey as a corpse. All three were Yoma.

"Didn't think so. I'll let you handle this Clare, if you don't mind. Not a lot I can do in this scenario without giving something away. Call if you think I can help." Clare stepped from the crowd, and the Yoma took a visible step back. The memories of the bandits, ingested with the brains, told them that Yura had been with a Claymore, but didn't think that they would still be in contact.

Though she had some space to work with, Clare would have a hard time with this battle. With so many people close at hand, she would have to hold back most of her power in order to avoid injuries in close quarters.

The Yoma weren't fazed by Clare's presence for long, and, unlike her, were not restricted by the crowd. They struck, forsaking their pilfered weapons for their claws.

As Yoma go, these three were powerful, almost twice Clare's height. The big one charged first. It covered the distance between itself and Clare in an instant. But powerful though they were by the standards of Yoma, Clare had one encountered a type of being far more powerful, and was more than a match for these ones, if she could find the space to fight in.

She blocked the first strike, but it pushed her back into the crowd, knocking down several of them, and sending some a step closer to the fire. She stopped its advance, and sent the Yoma reeling back with a kick to the midsection.

At that point, she could have jumped over the Yoma, giving herself more room to fight with, but that would have left the crowd exposed, and the Yoma could use the people as a shield. She instead placed herself between the people and the Yoma.

This time, she attacked. She lunged towards the smallest of the Yoma, standing in the entrance to a side street. It avoided her attack, and lashed out, stretching its fingers into lethal whips. She sliced off the fingers, ran at the Yoma and stabbed for its midsection. It was fast, and managed to jump over the blade and retreated into the company of its fellow Yoma.

Though she didn't skewer her opponent, she did accomplish her intended objective, clear the alleyway. Yura took advantage of the opportunity, and got the people moving towards the opening.

One of the Yoma took offence at this. It stretched its forearm, launching its razor sharp claws at a child near the front of the crowd. Before the strike could land, Yura had intercepted the arm. He thrust his staff forward, running it along the rubbery limb, and began rotating the staff clockwise, wrapping and twisting it around his staff.

He held the vicious claws at bay as the people pushed, shoved and crawled into the alleyway, and onward to freedom. As the crowd fled, a total of ten people were left standing in the fire ringed section of the city. Clare Raki and Yura remained, along with the three Yoma. In addition to them, there were four others, just standing there smiling.

Everyone stopped to look there direction. "Our lucky day today, eh boys? We heard one of these witches was here."

A runty one with a high voice chimed in next. "We heard a Claymore was coming to town and were just on our way out. What luck that more of our kind would show up." The four transformed then, swelling and stretching into the corpse-grey forms of Yoma, shredding the simple clothing that covered them.

"What say you?" The largest of the newcomers said to the Yoma that had played the part of bandits. He looked at Clare with a feral smile. "Shall we all work to kill the witch, and share the spoils of this village?"

"Well, this complicates things just a little bit." Yura began releasing his own powers, now that the crowd was gone, but immediately stopped. With the fire dying down, some moronic people were going atop the buildings to watch the action. They didn't realize that any of the Yoma there could jump up there with little effort.

"Damn. I'll still have to leave most of this fight to you if at all possible, Clare. Too many people watching.

"Fine. I wasn't relying on you anyway." She struck fast, aiming for the one that Yura had entangled in his staff. It twisted at the last moment, but though it saved its head, it couldn't move its extended arm. It was severed at the shoulder. The remnant quickly withered and retracted in a welter of violet blood. Yura set the staff aside. He'd have to cut the knotted appendage off later.

It retreated, and Clare lunged at the one that was eyeing Raki, who had sequestered himself in a blocked doorway. Its head was split before it ever saw her move. She leapt away, after the one armed one and Raki made his way to one of the side streets, somewhere that wasn't a dead end.

The one armed one was fast. It even managed to dodge several of Clare's strikes. She first aimed high, but it ducked, then swung low and it jumped. She thrust, and the shot grazed its ribs. During the stabbing motion, she saw the reflection of the giant Yoma in her blood stained sword.

She knew it was coming anyway. She heard its footsteps, and felt its Yoki. Without looking, she could sense how it was moving, sense its rage, and exactly where it would try to strike her. Seeing it was almost irrelevant.

It aimed its claws for her head. She had ducked before the blow got anywhere near her. She twisted her body right, bringing the two Yoma in her field of vision. The battle became a standoff.

The two bigger Yoma faced Clare's front, and were backing slowly towards a second alleyway. The three lesser Yoma were quietly approaching her from behind. She knew they were there, and wasn't overly concerned.

"Uncle Yura!" The fight stopped instantly. Everyone, even the Yoma, stopped and stared. From a back alley, opposite the burning of the town, ran a young girl in a simple grey dress. "Uncle Yura, I fixed your coat!"


	7. Chapter 7:Restrained Fury

**C****hapter ****S****even**

**R****estrained ****F****ury **

"Elizabeth!? Get out of here! Run!" She looked away from Yura, and finally took stock of the area around her. Until then, when she walked into that corridor, she hadn't noticed anything amiss.

She was sent to town to bring Yura his coat before everything started, and arrived after the mass panic had ended and the commoners had taken hiding. About half way there, she saw smoke rising from the far end of town.

She thought that it was an odd time to have a bonfire, but the city did stuff like that on occasion. It looked like a big fire, and she thought the streets were empty because everyone was there. It never occurred to her that anything was wrong. All she had seen through the opening from alleyway was her Uncle Yura standing in the street.

But now, seeing the Yoma before her, and the city burning, her carefree manner was washed away by pure terror. She froze, her legs gave little more support than if they were rubber. She couldn't even run away.

The smallest of the Yoma, one of the ones standing behind Clare, caught sight of her. "What do we have here? An appetizer. The little ones are always so tasty." It licked its blood stained fangs with a long purple tongue, and in terror, Elizabeth's legs collapsed beneath her. She could do nothing more than cower in fear.

This got Yura angry. He took a hard step forward, and his eyes narrowed to icy blue slits. "Don't you dare touch her."

"And you would stop me? Foolish human." Clare almost smiled at the Yoma's comment. "Anyway, why bother until the witch is dead? She's the only threat here."

Clare took advantage of the Yoma's distraction to attack. She spun around and charged forward. In three steps she was there, and without the dense human presence restricting her, she was in a position of strength.

The Yoma saw her charge, and was prepared. It spread its claws wide, and sliced inwards. Ten razor claws aimed at Clare's head. Unfortunately for the Yoma, it was too slow. Clare dropped into a low crouch, and the claws sailed by inches above her head.

From ground level, the sword sliced up and right, bisecting the Yoma from hip to shoulder. It was dead before it hit the ground.

The ones that had posed as twins took action. The one-armed Yoma ran close to the ground, while its in-tact counterpart jumped high, reaching half the height of the nearby buildings. The people on the rooftop backed away with a frightened gasp, only now realizing that they weren't safe there.

They backed away. Most scurried back inside, favouring to hide in behind flimsy doors rather than stay in plain sight. A few men, brave and foolish alike, stayed to see the conclusion.

As the Yoma descended, Clare raised her sword high and slashed straight down at the one armed Yoma, but it twisted deftly, and all she did was reopen the wound on the severed arm.

The one armed Yoma ducked lower, and readied its claw for a brutal uppercut. At the same time, the Yoma in the air had its clawed hands ready to dig hard into Clare's back.

Because of how Clare senses Yoma through their Yoki, she knew exactly what was happening. Though far from the strongest of her people, her senses made her very capable against Yoma. Having the lowest ranking of Number Forty-Seven meant very little in the field.

She waited a fraction of a second, and pushed off to the left. She timed it perfectly. A moment sooner, and the Yoma would have been able to react effectively. Any later and she wouldn't have been able to get completely out of range in time.

Too late, the Yoma saw what had happened. They were already committed to their attack. It was too late to change their course. The grounded one's outstretched arm dug into the falling one's stomach, and the airborne one's extended claws raked the back.

Neither wound was lethal. The two were locked together for just a moment. Just long enough for Clare to turn, wind up her arm and swing straight across their abdomens.

Their eyes widened in horror as they comprehended their own fate. A fountain of violet blood heralded the end of the two Yoma.

Only three remained, the giant Yoma, and the two smaller ones that had hidden amongst the townsfolk. The larger Yoma glared ferociously at Clare. The smaller ones glanced at each other fearfully.

Yura, feeling that the Yoma were well enough beaten, relaxed. He had seen Elizabeth crawl backwards into the alley, and assumed she had run away, so he no longer needed to feel concerned about her for now.

"You don't have to die here." Yura mocked, crossing his arms and looking at them with a rather bemused expression. "You could always run away."

That was the breaking point for one of the smaller Yoma. It snarled at Clare and made a run for it, scrambling for the far alleyway, opposite from where Elizabeth still cowered. Before it had gone two steps, the larger Yoma seized it by the wrist.

"No running away. We fight until we die."

"I won't let the witch kill me here. Let me go!" The smaller Yoma clawed at the larger one's wrist, struggling in vain to escape its iron grip.

The larger Yoma glared at the cowardly runt. Its face was contorted with anger, but it seemed to Yura that it was also scared. "Better to die here than to run. _He _will not be as kind as her if I return a failure, after getting so close to _His _target. A sword makes what _he_ will do look kind. Run and I'll kill you myself." The large Yoma gave the smaller one a moment to reconsider.

The little Yoma continued to struggle in the iron grip. The giant Yoma took its other claw, wrapped it around the smaller one's head, and squeezed. The head burst with a sickening crunch, and the body dropped to the ground. Pulverized brain matter splattered on the cobblestones, along with cracked pieces of the skull.

"Who is this '_he_' you keep talking about?" The Yoma had peaked his interest.

"You will find out soon enough." The larger Yoma opened its closed fist and dropped the rest of the gelatinous grey matter, and glared ferociously at Yura. "It will be an interesting reunion."

With that, the Yoma turned its attention back to Clare. It howled terribly, with a voice that cracked the windows, and charged. It ran at Clare like a creature possessed. Its eyes were mad. It attacked with no regard for its own life.

The monster lashed out with its clawed fingers, each claw larger than one of Clare's fingers. She placed her sword in the path of the strike, catching it on the broad side. The impact sent her boots sliding back several feet, metal boots eliciting a shower of sparks from the stone.

The Yoma raised its arm high, striking downward. Clare again blocked the strike, and the force of this blow pushed her down on one knee. With the Yoma attacking so viciously, giving no thought to its next move, it was much harder for her to read its Yoki, and anticipate an attack.

The strikes rained down, each impact on her sword jarring her arm painfully, and punching her legs further into the shattering cobblestones. She finally found a moment to jump back, and get a little bit of space.

She was getting a feel for its movements, and learning to anticipate its attacks. Rather than blocking, she tried to dodge. She avoided one attack, and struck, barley managing to graze its shoulder with her thrust. This was going to take a while.

Yura watched the battle with a degree of concern. Clare was getting pushed back. He hoped he wouldn't have to intervene, but that was a possibility. At least the last little one hadn't joined in. It was just standing there.

The little Yoma wasn't sure what to do. It was torn between retreating, and risking the wrath of the big Yoma, as its brother had, but the silver-eyed witch had killed its other brother so easily. Did it even have a chance? A movement caught its eye.

A movement caught its eye. In the alleyway to the left, the largest of the horses that the false bandits rode in on had its reigns caught on a merchant's stand. Looking closer, he saw a small head poking out from the doorway. It looked closer still. The head was covered in sandy blonde hair, and the body attached to it clung onto a green coat for dear life.

A memory from the man it had last eaten rose to the surface of its mind. The man had thought it nothing more than a myth, meant to humanize the witches a bit. The Yoma thought about this for a moment, and a sly grin crossed its face.

It launched its arm like a striking snake, straight into the alleyway. The arm twisted at the last moment, into a small alcove. The limb retracted quickly, and when the hand came back into view, it had Elizabeth tightly in its grasp.

Yura gaped, stunned. He thought Elizabeth had left, gone home. He thought she was safe. All Yura could do was stop and stare.

The Yoma, young girl in hand, ran at Clare. Sensing the attack, she turned to cut it down before it could do any serious damage. Her blade stopped short. It stopped inches in front of Elizabeth's face, held in the Yoma's outstretched arm.

The Yoma grinned sadistically. "Ha. You can't kill humans, right?" It raised its claws for a deathblow. "I've got you now."

Just then, a feeling of overwhelming fury, carried on an intense Yoki, slammed the three combatants like a tidal wave. The Yoma reeled back, the smaller Yoma clutched Elizabeth to its body like a shield. Clare could hardly stand, her legs had turned to rubber. This Yoki held the promise of certain death.

But not for her. She felt only the fringes of the rage, and she couldn't imagine how intense it must really be to have Yoma cowering like children.

Raki didn't know what was going on. One minute, he thought Clare was going to die, and the next the Yoma were stepping away from her, looking as he had never seem a Yoma look, terrified.

He had also lost track of Yura.

A voice rose from behind him, deep and terrible. "I'm taking your sword." Raki turned as a weight lifted from his back, and saw the most terrifying sight of his life.

It had been a long time since Yura had truly gotten angry. Now, his blood boiled. In an instant, before he even knew what he was doing, Yura was behind Raki. He took the sword from Raki's back, shredding the cloth that disguised it, and pulling it from the sheath.

Yura saw Raki turn, and saw his eyes reflected in Raki's, burning with golden fire, face contorted into an expression of feral rage.

Yura exploded into action. Faster than the eye could track, Yura struck down with Raki's sword even as he charged towards the Yoma. Before the blow could land, he had covered the distance between himself and his target. The blade struck clean and hard. It sheared straight through the left arm, cutting the loose fibres of Elizabeth's dress, never touching her skin.

The child fell towards the ground, Yoma claw still gripped around her body. The fingers constricted as the hand lost life. Another swift stroke severed the fingers, a hair's breadth from Elizabeth's skin.

Yura leapt back, standing in front of the alley where Elizabeth had been hiding. From the moment Yura had stepped away from Raki, hardly a second had passed, hardly the time it would take a Yoma to blink.

The little Yoma stared at its severed stump of an arm. It didn't know what had happened. It looked at Clare, thinking she had done it, used her Yoki to stun it. It didn't even seen Yura standing there, holding the little girl under his arm, borrowed sword in his other hand as it dripped with Yoma blood.

And if the Yoma didn't see him move, Raki felt certain that the crowd on the roof had no idea what had just happened. This was affirmed by the confused whisperings, and congratulatory shouts from atop the roof, directed at Clare.

As quickly as it appeared, the raging Yoki subsided. Yura looked sternly at Elizabeth. "This time, go home." He tossed her into the alleyway, Yura's coat coming loose from her grip as he did so. Elizabeth landed firmly, but safely in the saddle of the draft horse that was snagged in the alley. Forgotten, the coat drifted into the smouldering fires.

Yura wasn't concerned. Having grown up on a horse ranch, Elizabeth had learned to ride a horse as soon as she could walk. Yura was confident that she would be alright.

Having gotten over the shock, Clare and the Yoma were ready to get back to killing each other. "That was a nice trick, witch, but it won't work again." As the little Yoma boasted, the larger one glared at Yura. It knew who had generated that terrible Yoki, but how it knew was very puzzling to Yura.

It focused that rage at Clare. With her still a bit distracted, it managed to bypass her guard, and score a grazing blow across her ribs. The large Yoma raised both fists over its head to crush Clare's skull. When she put her sword in the way, the shockwave shook the buildings.

The combatants were deadlocked. Clare released some of her Yoma power, making her eyes burn with a golden light, and she began pushing the large Yoma back. All but forgotten, the smaller Yoma extended the claws on its remaining hand, pulled its hand back to its ear and prepared to strike, and sever Clare's spine at the neck.

In control of himself this time, Yura ran in with the sword. He thrust the sword into the path of the Yoma's hand. When the Yoma hit the sword, the blade sliced deep into its palm.

"So you would die to save her? Humans are so stupid." It swept its arm, sending Yura tumbling. He placed a hand down on the cobblestones, turning the tumble into a summersault and landing squarely on his feet. The Yoma glanced down the alley, where Elizabeth was still struggling to free the trapped horse. "What about her? I could use a snack."

Yura raised the sword to point at the Yoma. "If you even think about touching her again, you will come to think of death by Clare's sword as a tender mercy."

"And you think you could stop me? Don't make me laugh. I've eaten children who looked stronger than you."

"You still don't understand? Let me open you eyes." Yura released a small amount of Yoki. Rather than blinding rage, this time the Yoki held only cold anger and fierce will.

"So you're one of _them_? I didn't know they made men into their warriors anymore." The Yoma grunted in disappointment as Elizabeth finally freed the draft horse, and began riding home.

Yura smiled cruelly at the Yoma. "Think what you want." Yura attacked, slowly. With little at stake now, all he had to do was distract the Yoma.

Clare was finally getting a handle on her opponent. Both had some more minor cuts on them than when he last checked. She would finish off her opponent soon, and then she could kill the little Yoma. He'd never have to reveal him true nature.

Yura moved fast, but still within the level conceivably achievable by a human. He stabbed deftly, but with little power. The Yoma dodged left, and lashed out with its fingers, extended into whips. Yura twirled like a dancer around the lethal claws.

Yura rolled low, rose to a knee and plunged his sword deep into the Yoma's thigh. The wound spurted violet blood as Yura pulled the sword free.

As Yura danced back, the Yoma lashed out again with the whip fingers. They wrapped deftly around the sword, trapping it. With the pressure from the fingers on the flat of the blade, Yura couldn't slice the fingers in his current state. There was nothing he could do from there without using at least some of his superhuman abilities.

The Yoma began retracting its fingers, slowly drawing Yura closer to the Yoma's gnashing teeth. It intended to bite his head off when he got closer. He could lose the sword, lose his secrecy, or lose his head.

Sword came loose as the Yoma took a rock to the head. It reeled its claws in, glaring at Raki. "Don't forget who You're really fighting." Yura ducked beneath the Yoma's arm while it looked towards Raki. Crouched low, Yura slashed upwards, leaving a line of purple blood on the Yoma's bicep. The return cut caught the Yoma under the armpit. Another chunk of broken cobblestone gave Yura the opening he needed to escape.

Yura ran back to stand in front of Raki. "That was a nice throw. Do you still have that knife you salvaged from the bandits?"

"Yeah." Raki reached behind him into his backpack, felt around for a second, and pulled the dagger out.

"How's your aim?"

"I don't know. I've never done knife throwing." Raki pulled the knife from its gem-encrusted sheath. The blade itself was long and finely crafted. The hilt was fairly uncomfortable, likely meant more for ceremony than actual use, but the hilt had a sharp point on the bottom, so even if that side hit, it would do some damage.

"Now's a good time to find out. I'll go in, and when you see an opening, throw. It'll be better than a rock, however it hits." Yura rushed the Yoma. It lashed out high, trying to take Yura's head off. He ducked low, but the Yoma was ready.

It tried to kick him with its razor-sharp toenails, long enough to reach a minor organ. From a crouch, Yura jumped over the foot and stabbed the Yoma in the ribs. Yura pulled the blade free, and dodged to the right. The Yoma turned to follow, and put itself directly in Raki's sights.

Gripping the dagger by the blade, Raki pulled his arm back and let the knife fly. It tumbled end over end towards the Yoma. Too late, it took its eyes off Yura, just in time to see the knife an inch from its face.

More by luck than skill, the knife sank right into the Yoma's eye. The long blade went deeper than the eye and pierced the brain. Nothing, not even a Yoma, can live if its brain gets shredded. The Yoma dropped, lifeless to the ground.


	8. Chapter 8:Almost a Smile

**C****hapter ****E****ight**

**A****lmost a ****S****mile **

Even as the little Yoma crumpled to the ground, Clare finally managed to cut the head off of her opponent. The larger Yoma head clattered to the ground, and rolled into the flames that blocked the street.

"Nice work Clare. I thought it had you for a minute." Yura walked up to her and gave her a congratulatory pat on the shoulder.

"How did that Yoma know you?" She demanded. It had definitely known Yura, and she wanted to know why.

"Damned if I know. I've had a few encounters with other Yoma but they always ended up dead. I never let them kill anyone, and when I see them that is usually what they're trying to do. None have survived my wrath as yet."

Yura stopped for a moment. "There was a scent on him that I recognized, though I can't for the life of me tell you where I know it from."

Clare nodded. "Now, what about that Yoki I felt from you? That was beyond what a Yoma should be able to produce." As Clare asked, the people who had been on the roof came down to see the aftermath of the fight.

"We'll talk later. This isn't really a conversation to share with the public." The people were very excited. Clare was initially surprised by the enthusiastic response. That quickly faded as the crowd gathered around Yura and Raki, leaving her ostracized.

This was nothing new to her. People seemed to view her people like they had a plague.

The crowed uttered a non-stop string of congratulations towards Yura and Raki, especially Yura. "Nice job," "Score one for the little guy," "Who needs those witches?" and countless other phrases.

Yura pushed the people back gently. "Now, I appreciate the gratitude, but it wasn't much really." He smiled happily at the people. "Raki here dealt the final blow. But even so the real hero here is Clare." He gestured at Clare with his free hand, then accepted a cloth from a bystander to clean Raki's sword.

The cheers and shouts stopped rather abruptly. Yura walked up to Clare, and patted her on the back. "She killed six of the damn monsters, single handed. We just finished off a straggler, which had already lost an arm. If anyone deserves your appreciation, its her."

"The silver-eyed witch?" exclaimed a man from the crowd. "Why would we thank her? She charges an arm and a leg to kill those things. Why thank her for getting paid?"

Yura glared angrily at the man, who withdrew under the fierce gaze. "First off, she doesn't get paid very much at all. Her bosses take most of it."

Yura took a step forward, and the man took another step back. "Second, how much do you think it costs them to mine, process and forge the metal that makes their weaponry? Rare minerals cost a lot to mine."

"Finally, the warriors who fight Yoma risk their lives time and again to protect you ingrates. They aren't made from scratch. They are human women who volunteer for a painful, disfiguring operation to become what they are, and protect you. At very least, they deserve some respect." The audience looked at each other sheepishly.

One of the women in the crowd finally built up the courage to approach Clare. She bowed lightly. "He's right. Thank you for doing what you do." The woman prompted the group to approach her.

Though not very enthusiastic, they all thanked Clare graciously, and she returned the thanks calmly and politley. Finally, the crowd dispersed. Only one old, bearded man was left behind. He held a large bag that sagged with gold. This was the local lord, the man who made the request in the first place.

"Here is the payment for killing the Yoma. Once again, thank you."

Clare looked the man in the eye. Though unchanged to the untrained eye, anyone who spent any time at all with Clare would say that she seemed almost happy for once. "Like my companion said, I don't take the money. A man in black will come by to collect the payment."

Clare looked thoughtful for a moment. She walked over to Raki and pulled a small piece of paper and a stick of graphite from his pack. "The man will try and collect payment for seven Yoma, though the request was only for four."

She scribbled hastily on the paper. "Give him this," she said, handing it to the man. "It is my testimony that the other three Yoma arrived late and were not part of the request, and that one of the Yoma that was part of the request was not killed by me. He will charge you for only three Yoma. Use the savings to rebuild."

"R-really? Thank you ma'am. Can I do anything for you? A meal, or a room for the night?"

"No thank you. I have a place to lodge for the night, and I have no need for anything in particular." Clare began walking away. "I thank you for your generosity, and wish you and the other people of this city well. I hope I never have need to return here."

* * *

On the way back to the ranch, the trio came across an area of the street that was completely deserted. Most of the city dwellers were cleaning up the damage from the battle and burying their dead.

Yura sighed as he finally ripped the twisted Yoma hand off of his staff. "Well, that's done. It's a shame my coat went into the fire, though. Elizabeth must have worked so hard on it." Yura's face brightened. "I have an idea." He grabbed the knife from Raki, who was trying to get the Yoma blood out of the elaborate hilt.

Yura reached behind him and cut two even slits into his shirt, one on either side, in a single deft motion. Clare felt a small amount of Yura's Yoki leak from him, now clam and controlled, containing no hint of the fury she had felt before.

A pair of grey bat-like wings with a red inner membrane stretched from the slits in his shirt.

"You're a flying type," Clare noted. Yura folded the wings around himself, the part that was equivalent to an elbow hooked under his armpits and the hand-like part rested on his shoulders, and the membrane hung down around him.

Yura shrugged. "Yes, I am. The ability to fly is one of my favourite things about being what I am. Does it really matter though?"

The skin wriggled as if there were worms beneath it, and took the colour and texture of his old coat. It even appeared to have a pair of stitches on the back where the bandit had ripped it.

It was an impressive trick, but not overly surprising to Clare, given Yura's ability to disguise himself as a human without needing to steal one's skin.

"It doesn't really matter. But that intense Yoki I sensed from you before does. No Yoma has that kind of power."

"True. But I am a very old Yoma. Keeping my head down has been very beneficial to my health." Yura shrugged again. "Yoma get stronger as they get older, and you'll be hard pressed to find a Yoma older than I am, or one stronger.

"That aside, I had some good motivation. Humans and Yoma have a different definition of limits that your people. Our limits are merely the maximum force our bodies can exert. Under the right conditions, desperation can allow our bodies to surpass those limits. I've seen a tiny woman lift a massive ox cart to save her trapped child because she was so desperate."

"I see. So you normally don't have that type of power?"

"As I said, I am more powerful than any other Yoma I have ever encountered, but I almost never exhibit the level of power I did earlier. I'm not sure I could do it again if I tried."

Clare nodded, satisfied, and the three made their way back to the ranch.

* * *

Clare, Raki and Yura arrived at the ranch house just after sundown. They were met by the entire family. Elena ran up to Clare and hugged her tightly, tears of relief streaming down her face. "Thank you for saving my baby. Thank you, thank you thank you."

"It was nothing. I only did my job." Clare wasn't used to having to lie. She really had no part in saving Elizabeth. Apparently the child was under the impression that Clare had saved her and passed her to Yura, and told her parents that story.

Myles walked up to Clare as Elena detached. "Even so, Elizabeth owes you her life. You are always welcome here, my friend." He shook her hand firmly. "And Yura, Elizabeth says that you stopped the Yoma from coming back after her. She also owes you her life. Thank you Yura. We all owe you so much."

"You owe me nothing, my friend." Yura smiled brightly, and placed his hands on Myles's shoulders. "I love Elizabeth as if she were my own flesh and blood. I would no sooner let her die than I would let myself die."

There was a light rumble of thunder in the distance. This was good. A storm would help put out the fires in the city. A single drop of rain landed on Yura's hand. "Well, who's hungry? I have a mountain of food in my pack, and I'd like to get inside before we get soaked."

Despite the tragedy of the day, the mood at dinner was very light and lively. Everyone felt sad for the families who lost loved ones to the Yoma, but were also very happy that they were spared that grief.

Everyone with any skill in cooking, leaving only Clare without a job to do, helped in the meal. Thanks mostly to Yura and Raki, a feast was prepared that was fit for a king. Myles even dug out his best wine. The dining table was barley large enough to contain it all.

They talked and laughed heartily, except for Clare who still seemed resistant to conversation, and everyone was polite enough not to push her. That was just the interpretation of the family. In truth, she was very much content to listen and be immersed in the happiness around her.

Unlike before, no one felt discomforted by her presence. She was a welcome addition to the house, like a guardian angel in the children's eyes.

Over an hour later, everyone was full to bursting with beef, pork and a dozen varieties of garden produce, except for Clare who, as is her custom, only nibbled at a little bit of everything. There were enough leftovers to "fuel an army for a year" as Jeremy so elegantly put it.

The feasting and revelry had carried them well past midnight. Bellies full and hearts uplifted, everyone went to bed.

* * *

It was noon before most of the people in the house woke up. An overfull stomach and a late night will do that to people. By then, Clare and Raki were already awake and packing up to leave.

Yura was up next. He set his bag by the door with his walking stick, and prepared breakfast. A simple entree of eggs, buttered bread and bacon. It was ready when Myles and his family woke up.

After eating, Clare and Raki prepared to say goodbye. To their surprise, Yura was packing up too.

"So you're all leaving?" Myles asked. "I expected Master Yura at least to stay a few more days."

"Sorry old friend. I have some business in Malamar to attend to. It came to my attention a few weeks ago that the man I set to manage my fishery there has retired. It seems the man who took over let the position go to his head, and is in desperate need of either a demotion or a firing. I'll decide which when I get there."

Yura looked at the disappointed faces of the children. "But I mean to come back here just as soon as I'm done. Of all of the places I frequent, this one feels the most like home."

"I also have business in Malamar. Rubel contacted me overnight, and we have a request coming from that area." Clare was surprised, but not unhappy, that she would continue to travel with Yura. He was good company on a long trip, and strong enough to help her if she ever needed it.

Clare chided herself for thinking like that. Nice though he may be, he was still a Yoma. Thinking on it a little more, she realized that she no longer really looked at him as a Yoma at all. It was simply an old habit that kept that concept coming back in her mind from time to time.

"Well then, I think we'd best be going. I've got enough travel rations for the trip, and Malamar has plenty of rivers running into its bay, so water won't be an issue." Yura hoisted his pack, grabbed his walking stick and started out the door. Myles followed him.

Myles gazed off at the clouds, looking sad. "We're going to miss you Yura. You're practically one of the family."

"I know. I feel the same." Yura glanced sideways at Myles. Guessing the younger man's thoughts, he said "There's no need to worry about me. I don't plan on throwing myself in harm's way on a regular basis."

"I'm glad to hear it. We'd be devastated if anything happened to you."

"Like I said, no need to worry. I still plan on living for a very long time yet. Now, one more thing. It's about my share of the profits for this ranch."

Myles looked at Yura, confused. "Did I not give it to you? I could have sworn that I did."

"No, no. Nothing like that. Ever since I saw how well you were doing here, and how good you've been to the people working under you, I've stopped thinking of those payments as simply my due, but rather as incremental payments towards this land. As of today, you have paid me the total value of this entire place."

"So you're saying…"

"That as of right now, I am no longer the owner of this ranch. You are, my friend. But don't think that means you're free from my regular visits." Yura pulled out a small scroll from his bag and handed it to Myles. It was the deed to the ranch.

Myles just stared at the paper for a moment. "I-I don't know what to say…"

"Just keep taking good care of your family, and keep treating the employees well. We'll call it even." Yura smiled at Myles and hugged the man who he had come to love like a brother.

Meanwhile, inside the house, Elena and the family said goodbye to Clare. "Once more, thank you for what you've done for us. If you ever need anything, just let us know."

"I will. I hope my duty takes me through this town again, so long as I have no need to work here."

With that, everyone went outside. Yura received a group hug from the entire family, Raki shook hands, and with that, the troupe left for Malamar.

As they left the city behind them, Raki noticed something odd, but not unwelcome. Clare almost looked like she was smiling.


	9. Chapter 9:Unfortunate Reunion

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character.**

**Chapter Nine **

**Unfortunate Reunion **

A few days later, and the group was making its way into Malamar. They had spent the past couple nights subsisting on wild game, including a rabbit, which Yura used to sate his occasional need for raw meat. He ate it away from the others, and Raki was thankful he did.

Yura and Raki also roasted a game hen, which was very tasty after they were done with it. The other meals were built upon the travel food that Yura and Raki carried with them.

Staying near a small river made water very accessible. Unfortunately it was too cold for comfortable bathing and didn't have a lot of fish in it to catch.

On the third day of their travels, the salt in the air told them they were nearing their destination. Malamar was large for a fishing town, but to small to be a major port city. The small bay that it was built in severely limited the travel of larger ships in and out of the port.

It was mostly constructed of wooden buildings, cheaply made but well crafted. The lighthouse at the water was stone. Using a large flame to generate the light, reflected by a set of mirrors, a wooden building would have meant that the tower could easily burn down, and would likely take the rest of the town with it. Some of the more luxurious buildings were also stone.

By noon the next day, they were passing through the city gate. Unlike most places, the people of Malamar never really took the myths of Clare's people being monsters seriously.

They were met by a large group of people, all cheering enthusiastically. "Alright. A Claymore," "We're going to be alright." The happy expletives continued as they got further into the town.

Yura gently elbowed Clare in the side and whispered "Could get use to this, huh Clare?" She ignored the comment and just kept on walking. They were heading for the mayor's house. As usual, he was the one who made the request.

The lord of Malamar was surprisingly young. Most of the lords Clare had met had been kindly old men. The man here was young. In his early thirties at the most. He also didn't look very kind. He had a wide spread reputation as a cold blooded businessman.

Which was why such a small town could afford to make a request to the organization. Most economies smaller than that of a city would be crippled by the cost of paying for a Yoma extermination.

The mayor dressed in elegant dark blue clothing. He wore his black hair long and loose. His icy blue eyes were colder than those of anyone Yura, or even Clare had ever seen, and they had both met some very heartless individuals.

Despite his eyes, the man managed to smile rather convincingly. "Welcome. I assume you're here about the request I put in?"

"Yes. That is the reason I came here. I would like the details of the request please." Clare did her best to match his cold gaze, but couldn't quite match the emotional void therein, not that she was intimidated.

"Good. With all of the boats returning to port with dead crew members lately, the town income has dropped dramatically. Looking at the corpses, we know that it's a Yoma doing it."

The mayor sighed with relief, as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "If you kill the Yoma, we'll get our investors back, and the fishermen will be willing to head back out."

Clare's eyes narrowed slightly, almost imperceptibly, with disgust. "So you are paying to have me stabilize your economy?"

"And to ensure my continued presence as head of the community. How would the people look upon a man who would allow such atrocities to continue?"

Clare glared again at the man, her gaze now more than matching his. She viewed him as being little better than a Yoma. He saw his own people as nothing more than tools for his own betterment. But she had to complete the request for him, so she might as well work with him. "You said that people were being killed on boats?"

"Yes. I've done my research, and that is rather uncharacteristic for them, but that is what's happening. None of the crew who survived really know how it happened. They just find gutted corpses."

"Though the Yoma is likely in the town, we will need a fishing boat available to us to be certain."

"Well, you're on your own for that. I'm tapped out as it is."

Clare glanced sideways at Yura, the only ship owner she knew. He smiled and shrugged gently, as if such were no great issue. The mayor interpreted that shrug as meaning that he could do nothing.

Clare understood that Yura would contribute, but he didn't want the money-grubbing leach across from him to know he had money. Openly announcing the ability to contribute a boat would most certainly do just that.

Clare bowed politely and left hastily. Yura slammed the heavy wooden door shut behind him.

Yura sighed loudly. "God, if any man ever deserved to be eaten by a Yoma…" Clare glared at him threateningly. "What? I was just saying. It's not like I'd actually do it."

Yura had no inhibitions of speech here. The area around the manor was like a small park, but no one frequented it for distaste for the mayor's company. As useful as his politics were economically, no one liked him.

They headed out of that region of the town. "I'm going to head for the market. This town has a great selection of fish to choose from. You have never tasted anything like my Red Snapper, fried over an open fire."

"We will not be accompanying you. I have other places to search, and I believe that your presence subtly disrupts my ability to sense Yoki, so searching in your presence might hamper my ability to find the Yoma."

Yura nodded thoughtfully. "Fair enough. I'll meet you at the Bridge and Thorn Inn at sundown. It's near the fisheries. I'll have dinner ready."

Clare and Raki headed for the harbour, hopefully one of the busier places in the town, and Yura headed for the market.

Hours later, both groups had little luck. With the fish market declining, as the fishermen were unwilling to go out to sea, Yura only managed to purchase a small portion of Grouper and a chunk of Tuna. Clare and Raki found the harbour nearly deserted.

They encountered each other by chance at a crossroad between Market Street and Harbour Road. "Well, any luck? I've had virtually no good fortune at the market. Only some Tuna and Grouper. I hate Tuna."

"No, I haven't found a sign of the Yoma."

"That's rather unfortun…ate." Yura trailed off mid sentence and started staring off in the distance.

Raki looked at him with concern. "Is something wrong?"

"No. I think I saw someone I recognize over that way, though." Yura started moving through the sparse crowd. He only had to move around a few people and an ox cart, and he reached his target.

Yura reached over and grabbed the man by the shoulder, turning him around. "Ha! I knew I recognized you." The man was quite young, maybe in his early twenties. He dressed completely in black. The shirt and pants were a soft, loose fabric. Over this was a long trench coat with an open front, made of a harder fabric. The coat had a hood, but it was lowered at the moment.

"Yura! Good to see you. It's been a while."

The coat was decorated with silver buttons, and a chain around his throat. His boots were oiled leather, He had crossing bracers of hard leather on his calves and forearms. His eyes were bright, vibrant blue, and his hair was light brown and spiky. The spikes were more from lack of care rather than a fashion choice.

"Too long, my friend. I haven't seen you since we ran into each other outside of Benalia."

Clare also seemed to recognize the man, though she was not happy to see him. "You know him, Osrik?"

Osrik finally noticed Clare. "Clare. Good to see you. I'd been hoping to run into you before things really got started. "Yes I know him. This ding bat's an old friend of mine."

Yura feigned annoyance. "Who are you calling old?" Yura started snickering as Osrik smiled at him. "Alright. You caught me. I'm old."

Despite the good humour, Yura was a little bit confused. How on earth did Clare know Osrik? "So, you two know each other too?"

"Sort of. I'm the member in charge of Miria, who is a friend of Clare's, so I know of her."

Yura's eyes widened with surprise. "Wait a minute, you're with the organization? You never told me that."

Osrik laughed gently into his hand. "I thought it was pretty obvious. How many other people do you see walking around in black in the middle of the summer?"

Yura laughed too, shrugging gently. "Got me there. I don't think it matters all that much, though. I still like you."

Yura paused for a moment. "So this Miria is a warrior like Clare?" Yura wasn't really all that happy anymore, despite the smile. It was always a bit of a pain having to try to hide from these warriors, and it would be much worse if he was found out.

"Yes. She's the Number Six of the organization." Even worse. More well ranked warriors were harder to deceive.

"Now, out of curiosity, why is she here? I thought there was only one warrior per region."

"Well, that's what I wanted to discuss with Clare. Can I assume that you're a friend of hers?" Osrik looked at Clare for confirmation.

Clare nodded. "I do know him. We have been travelling the same road by coincidence since I started heading for Charrow. I would consider him a good acquaintance."

"Good." Osrik smiled brightly. "Then I don't have to exclude him. Where can we go to talk?"

Yura pointed to the harbour. "I know a lovely hotel over that way, the Bridge and Thorn Inn. It's only a short ways —"

Yura was interrupted by the ring of a sword slicing ferociously through the air. "Hello, Helen." Clare looked out the side of her eyes at the shining blade that rested an inch from her left ear.

"Damn. I hoped you'd at least twitch. I'll actually have to try and hit you next time." The new arrival, Helen, was dressed exactly like Clare, except for the black fabric on her arms and legs. Helen had a happier face than Clare, and wore her hair in a slightly more elaborate style. It was about as long as Clare's, but better tended, hanging in even locks.

She hoisted her sword on to her shoulder. "Yo, Deneve! Come say hi."

Deneve was yet another warrior in similar clothing to the others, though the white fabric of the suit extended to the wrists. The armour was slightly more elaborate than that of the others. The shoulder armour was heavier, but the bracers on the arms and legs were lighter.-

Deneve had very short hair, for a woman. It was like Osrik's but with a higher hair line, and pale blonde like all of her people.

"I'm glad to see that we've all lived long enough to meet again." Starting with Deneve, the three women pulled out their swords and locked them gently together.

Helen looked over at Osrik. "Yo Osrik. Didn't see you there. If you're here, Miria must be too. She couldn't come say hi or what?"

Frustration clouded Osrik's face for a moment. "She's here somewhere, but I've lost track of her. She decided to go on ahead and scout out the town. I guess I was slowing her down. But the least she could have done was come up with a meeting place or something."

"She must be pretty skilled, being well ranked. She'll be able to find us." Yura pointed down the street with his walking stick. "The inn is that way. We can talk privately there."

Yura was now feeling very tense. Hiding from one warrior was difficult enough. Having to hide from three would be a real pain, especially if one was a single-digit. If he was found out, events would get very unfortunate.

Clare, Deneve and Helen hung back of Yura, Raki and Osrik. Helen whispered in Clare's ear. "Who's the old guy? Picking up more strays Clare?"

"I met him on route to Charrow. He has agreed to help us on this hunt by lending us a boat."

Deneve looked thoughtful for a moment. "Needing a boat is a very odd requirement for any hunt."

Clare nodded. "So is needing four of us to complete a request. The only time that really happens is when…"

Helen looked nervous. "Yeah. We're all thinking the same thing."

Deneve stared at the ground as she walked. "Something doesn't feel right about all this." She looked up, her icy gaze coming to rest on Yura. "Or about him."

* * *

Meanwhile in Charrow, a shadow gathered across the horizon, though no clouds marred the daytime sky. From that shadow a two patches descended down the hillside. 

The figures resolved into men on horses. The rider on the larger horse whore pitted but shiny armour, and no helmet. He had shoulder length black hair and his face was wide, with a squashed nose and a long scar from his left cheek to his chin.

"This place should be ashes" he scowled and looked over the city, seeing scaffolding and new wood structures rather than rubble and ashes.

"Why isn't it?" asked the smaller one. "Was _he_ here?"

The grass shifted around the pair, but the wind was blowing the other way. It settled and the larger man calmed. "It may not have been _him_. Take another, and find a likely victim. Crack open his skull, feed on the contents. See what he knows."

"It will be done." Grinning maliciously, the smaller man returned to the distant shadow.

* * *

**Author's Note**: 

I wanted to give my readers an explanation for why Osrik is in my story. The guy with username Emu777 is a personal friend of mine. He was the one who convinced me to turn my qwery as to why Yoma are never good into a story, and things evolved from there.

A few chapters later, and we came up with the idea of a collaboration between our two stories (in Calculus, no less), and this developed as a result. He has yet to put forth his end of the collaboration, but hopefully he can update while I'm on hiatus. I hope this clears that up a little bit.


	10. Chapter 10:Fateful Meeting

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character. The flashback in this chapter occurs shortly after Emu777's chapter 9, when Osrik leaves Benalia. **

**C****hapter ****T****en**

**F****ateful ****M****eeting**

The trip to the inn was quick. There was very little traffic in the streets to slow the troupe's progress. Within five minutes, they stood outside of the Bridge and Thorn.

"Well, here we are," Yura said, happily. "The Bridge and Thorn is one of my favourite inns this side of Pieta, which has surprisingly nice accommodations given that the climate keeps travellers away for the most part."

The Bridge and Thorn was a nice building. It was in a state of slight disrepair, as funds were decreasing, but it was relatively insignificant. One or two shingles hung loosely from the elegantly curved roof, and the paint had a few flakes coming off of the carved pillars next to the large double doors. These details aside, it seemed more of a manor than an inn.

Yura pushed through the doors and the rest followed him in. The inside was much like the outside, extremely well designed and decorated, but just a hint shabbier than would be expected. The windows were ineptly washed and a few cobwebs hung in the hard to reach corners.

But the luxurious cushioned seats and fine wooden tables that sat evenly spaced in the dining hall made these details easy to overlook. The place was fairly empty. A few of the townsfolk sat at the tables, and only one man stood at the wide desk.

Normally there were three, one to handle food orders, another for beverages, and another for room rentals. With low business, one man handled all three.

Yura approached the man. He was very large around the middle, wearing a stained white apron below his moustached face. He was obviously the chef in addition to the desk clerk. "Good afternoon. My companions and I will be spending the night, and likely several more. Could you get us keys to enough rooms to sleep seven?"

The man looked up. He was slightly disconcerted by the warriors standing in front of him but was polite enough not to take issue with it. "That'll be three rooms, two with two beds, and a three bed suite." The portly man scribbled a price on a sheet of paper and handed it to Yura.

"That's it? Normally, I pay more than twice that much to stay here."

The clerk sighed deeply and hung his head. "With the Yoma killings, not a lot of people come buy. With bad business, the price drops."

"I see." Yura dug out a good number of gold sticks from his bag, and handed them to the clerk. "Keep the extra for yourself. With bad business the employees suffer first. I don't know how long we'll be staying, so I'll be paying nightly."

The man stared at the money, startled. That was enough to pay for the whole week. "Th-thank you sir." He handed Yura three keys and pointed them to the stairs. The group headed up to the third floor and went into the three bed suite. It was the best place for the big group to talk.

Helen whistled loudly. "Nice place. I've never seen a bedroom this size." It was indeed a large room. The third floor had the most expensive rooms in the inn. The ceiling stretched to twice the height of anyone there and hung several crystal chandeliers, though they were a bit dusty.

It had its own restroom facilities and a small kitchen with wood for the stove. Yura headed strait for the kitchen and started a fire in the stove. "Sorry. I didn't buy enough fish for all of us. I guess we'll split what I make and buy something more downstairs later."

Yura pulled out the pieces of fish from his bag and chopped them up into six even pieces. He wasn't making one for Miria because he had no idea when she would arrive. After the fish was cut, he pulled out a handful of small jars filled with herbs and sauces and used that to season the fish.

Between the tuna, Grouper and the various vegetables that Yura pulled from his pack, there was maybe enough for everyone to have a snack.

Yura thought about splitting his share of the greenery between the others, as he couldn't digest it, but decided not to. He still enjoyed well prepared roughage on occasion and not eating it would look odd in this situation.

The women ate in companionable silence while the men chatted amongst themselves. Though Helen and Osrik seemed content enough in general, Deneve never took her eyes off Yura. Her gaze wasn't threatening so much as it was simply intense, like she was trying to look through Yura rather than at him.

Helen set her plate aside and contentedly slumped in her chair. "That was the best meal I've had in a long time. Where'd you learn to cook yo?"

Yura finished off his own plate and set it aside. "I learned a little bit from everywhere I've ever stopped. I've had a very long time to perfect my craft." He smiled at Helen. "It's always nice to be appreciated."

Clare was getting impatient. She looked at Osrik, and gently demanded "Why are we all here? I would like you to explain why there are four warriors stationed in this town, and why we need a boat to complete our mission."

Osrik, who had been catching up with Yura on their experiences since their last meeting, turned to face Clare, smile dimming slightly but not fading entirely. "I'd rather wait until Miria was here. It's not like we're in a big hurry anyway. Yura says it won't be possible to get a boat ready to sail before noon tomorrow anyway."

Helen stood up and stretched. "So what do we do till Miria turns up? I'm gonna get bored just sitting around here yo."

Deneve spoke up, facing Osrik but looking at Yura through the side of her eyes. "I want to know how you and Yura met each other." Deneve hoped that this would ease some of her concerns about Yura, though she didn't know where these misgivings came from.

"There's not much for me to tell," Osrik said, shrugging. "Yura had the big part in it, so I'll let him tell the story."

"You're far too modest my friend." Yura laughed and patted Osrik on the shoulder. "You were the hero there, and I'm the one who didn't do that much. But as your story telling abilities are somewhat limited for entertainment value, I suppose I'll tell it for you.

"I was coming in from Lenowin, headed for Benalia. I had gone that way to check up on a few business interests…"

* * *

It had been a long walk from Lenowin. It was a small town a good distance north, with a good bit of harsh rocky terrain along the way. It got very cold in the winter around there, but the summer temperature was very reasonable, like it was now.

The town was especially well known for its lumber and the working of their products. Yura didn't own a business there but he did invest heavily. Except for the long walk through uninhabited terrain, it was a worthwhile trip.

He was late into his eighth day of straight walking, at a pace few people could match and as the landscape evened out to an evergreen forest, and the dirt road beneath his feet became better tended, Benalia was finally in sight.

Benalia was a fairly military town, and few people got in unannounced, but he managed to get an overnight stay on the way in. He could probably do so again.

It was oddly popular for weddings, though he really didn't know why.

He had sworn to himself that if he ever had to go that way again, he'd just fly there and get it over with. Most of the territory in this area had very little live game for him to live off of.

He obviously didn't say anything about flight or his superhuman endurance out loud in his recount of the event. He kept these thoughts, and others revolving around him being a Yoma, strictly to himself.

It was getting late, and he was finally going to settle down for the night, rest and eat a cooked meal rather than dried travel rations. He was beginning to get hungry for raw meat. A deer was a little bit much, but they were abundant here and one would suffice.

As a matter of fact, he could smell one right now, a little ways down the road and in the bushes. It was a doe, and was fast asleep, practically begging to be eaten. He could practically taste the meat, raw, red and dripping. Just a few more steps and he could…

Next thing he knew, he was on the ground. He didn't think he was that oblivious as to just trip up. Looking up, he realized that he hadn't just tripped, but rather he had run into something. He realized that what he had walked right into was a man. He really was hungry if he was that unaware of his immediate surroundings.

"Sorry sir." Yura pushed himself up with his staff, and offered his hand to the downed young man. "Wasn't watching where I was going. My mind was wandering."

The young man, dressed all in black with spiky brown hair, took the hand and pulled himself up. "It's not just you fault. I wasn't paying attention either." The man dusted himself off. "Where are you headed?"

After hoisting the man off the ground, Yura brushed himself off. "Benalia. I had business in Lenowin, and this route takes me to my next destination."

The man winced. "That probably isn't a very good idea. There was a series of highly unfortunate events recently there. I don't think they will happily accept any visitors right now. Not that they could stop you anyway, the way things are in there."

"That's not very good. What happened?"

The man looked sadly at the ground. "There was a Yoma attack. Most of the guards were wiped out. They have common townsfolk manning the gates for now, though they barley know how to hold their spears."

This was surprising and bad news to Yura. Strict though it was, it was a nice town, and he did have a few friends there. And it had never been a target for Yoma before. "I came through there a few weeks ago, and nothing was wrong. Are you sure? Is there some mistake?"

The man clenched his hands together and looked sadly at the ground. "No. I saw it with my own eyes. You'd best find a way around, rather than try and go through if possible."

"That is terrible. It's always sad to hear of something like this. I suppose there's no need to keep going tonight, then." Yura bowed slightly to the stranger. "Thank you for the advice. I'll set up camp out here somewhere I think."

"Do you mind if I join you?" The man in black asked politely. "It's been a very long day, and I was planning on stopping for the night. I wouldn't mind some company."

"Not a problem. It's been a lonely trip for me from Lenowin." In truth, Yura did mind. He could sense the deer moving away, having woken up. He would regret losing it. But he wasn't that desperate for red meat yet, so the deer wasn't worth him acting out of character. 'My name's Yura by the way."

The man in black took and shook Yura's outstretched hand. "Osrik. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Yura released Osrik's hand. A strong breeze blew past the two in the fading daylight. Yura gazed off into the bushes. "If I remember correctly, there's a sheltered clearing a little over that way. It'll be a good place to start a fire and do some cooking."

Yura and Osrik passed through the thin scrub, picking up dry tree branches and a few broken chunks of large branches along the way. Just as Yura said, there was a small clearing, sheltered from the strengthening wind.

Coming out of the bushes, Yura was surprised that Osrik could move so deftly through the woods. He hadn't heard Osrik trip over a log, or snag himself on one of the claw-like tree branches that hung low from the evergreens even once, which would have generally been expected in the failing light.

Yura and Osrik set up a ring of stones around the firewood, and gathered up some dry grass from the clearing's edge as kindling.

Using flint from his bag, Yura quickly got the fire going and began boiling water in a pan from his bag. Half an hour later, the sun had set and Yura had prepared a nice stew from the dried materials from his bag, and the two had settled down to eat.

"This is pretty good." Osrik had never seen a meal like this prepared from travel rations. Though not the best meal he'd had, it was better than any of the food he carried with him. The boiled jerky became quite tender in the herb-filled broth, and the dried fruits added a pleasantly sweet flavour to it.

Yura sipped at it gently. "Not bad. Not my best, but not bad." In truth, though he could taste it, he couldn't really enjoy his own food. His thoughts kept wandering to raw meat. Innards spilling through his teeth, blood in his hands.

Though he never actively considered eating Osrik, after all these centuries there was still this little voice in the back of his mind that said _humans are still meat_. This annoying voice entered his mind now, but was quickly suppressed.

Yura forced himself to eat the unwanted meal until his stomach was full. Though this didn't alleviate his craving, it did significantly diminish his hunger.

During dinner, the two talked about their lives. Yura told Osrik about his business holdings and profitable hobby as a chef, and Osrik told Yura the better parts of his nomadic lifestyle.

The matter of Osrik being part of the organization wasn't actively avoided. It just didn't come up in a conversation that tended towards light hearted topics.

Osrik talked a lot about Miria. He stopped himself from mentioning that she was part of the organization, as he didn't want to hear anything about her being a monster. He hated that kind of talk about any warrior, especially Miria.

Though his discussion about Miria was very flattering, Osrik's story telling skills left something to be desired. Yura still got the impression that Osrik thought of Miria as more than just a friend, but he also got the feeling that Osrik would never admit it.

Even in his recount of these events, Yura avoided mentioning this perspective. Despite thinking Osrik would make a very funny face if presented with this accusation.

Yura yawned cavernously, stretching his arms out to either side. "Well, I think this has been a very pleasant night. I'm going to turn in." Yura pulled out his sleeping mat and settled in for bed.

Though he didn't have an extra mat for Osrik, who appeared to travel with nothing more than the cloths on his back, Yura did have a worn, padded blanket to offer, which was readily accepted. The night wasn't cold, so the blanket wasn't needed for warmth.

Osrik yawned too and rubbed his eyes. He glanced slightly sleepily at Yura and said "Goodnight, then. See you in the morning." Osrik settled down on the blanket, folded several times to soften the ground, and went quickly to sleep.

Over an hour later, Yura got up and was planning on going to find some red meat. Quiet to the point of noiselessness, Yura snuck away into the woods. He felt certain that Osrik really was asleep.

Within minutes of noiselessly ducking and weaving through the pine trees, Yura was out of Osrik's hearing range, and felt safe hunting for food. Yura explained it to his audience as needing to drain his bladder, which was also the story he would have fed to Osrik if he'd noticed Yura was missing.

He released the most minute amount of his tightly controlled Yoki. Just enough to sharpen his senses and improve his night vision.

After half an hour of searching, he picked up the scent of a rabbit, and within minutes he had found the rabbit's burrow. He reached into the burrow and pulled out the sleeping rabbit. He snapped its neck as quickly as possible. There was no need to make the creature suffer.

For a few minutes, Yura was happily chewing away on the small creature. It would sustain him for now, but he would need more in a couple days.

He was very careful to make sure he had no blood on him before heading back. He kept his Yoki slightly released so he was less likely to trip on the way back, and wake Osrik.

It was lucky he did. There was a smell on the pine needles that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Oh no." Yura picked up the pace. The scent was getting stronger.

* * *

**Author's Note**:

Emu777 was supposed to write of the encounter between Yura and Osrik originally. He was very slow in producing his 9th chapter, so he gave me permission to write this encounter on his behalf. I don't know if he has plans to pick up on his own story.


	11. Chapter 11:Against the Odds

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character. The flashback in this chapter occurs shortly after Emu777's chapter 9, when Osrik leaves Benalia. **

**C****hapter ****E****leven**

**A****gainst the ****O****dds**

"So it was simply by coincidence that you were out of the clearing at this time?" Deneve looked at Yura suspiciously.

Yura stared at Deneve for a moment and leaned over to Osrik before whispering to him "Is she always this paranoid?"

Osrik just shrugged his shoulders. Helen chuckled and nodded her head.

Yura looked back at Deneve and smiled. "Well, yes, I would call it coincidence that I happened to leave just then. Especially when you're my age, when nature calls, one must answer. Now, where was I…"

* * *

The smell only got worse as Yura approached the clearing. Yura risked a further release of his power to speed his progress. He didn't realize that he had strayed so far from the campsite.

Yura dodged through the underbrush, coming up rapidly the source of the smell. He leapt high over a massive stump and burst into the clearing to find his worst fears confirmed. Osrik had been found by a Yoma.

The Yoma stood by the embers of the fire, fully transformed. It was small for a Yoma, not quite even reaching seven feet. The thin waist and long hair told Yura that it was a female, which were rarely seen outside of their mountainous nests.

It lunged at Osrik, swiping with claws like razor blades. Osrik ducked the claws of the left hand and delivered a low kick to the creature's foot.

Small though this Yoma was, it was still more than a match for a lone human. Osrik's boot glanced off of the leg as if it were steel. The Yoma reached its right claw back and slashed across at Osrik's lowered head.

Osrik jumped over the claw and kicked the Yoma in the teeth, more to propel himself backwards than to try and wound it.

Yura was astounded to watch Osrik dodge and weave around the claws with a speed rarely observed in humans.

His astonishment didn't last long as the Yoma's claws grazed Osrik's shoulder, loosing a small trickle of crimson blood. Yura snapped into action. He charged towards the battle. He swerved to the left, and grabbed his staff from where he had slept, then changed course and came at the Yoma.

Before Yura could engage, the Yoma had Osrik pinned. It had chased him down after he had kicked off of the Yoma's face. It had slammed its palm into Osrik's chest as he fumbled in his belt, and pressed Osrik into the ground.

Resting on a knee, and crushing Osrik into the earth, the Yoma raised its free claw. The fingers pressed together, claw tips aligning to act as a single deadly blade. It drew the hand back to its pointed ear, eyes burning brightly in anticipation of the kill.

Yura finally reached the battle. He was thankful that the Yoma was so focused on Osrik. It never saw him coming.

Yura rushed the Yoma from behind. He used the leg extended from behind the Yoma's knee as a step, jumped onto its back and from that point, leapt high into the air.

The Yoma finally noticed him. It turned, loosening its pressure on Osrik's chest. It turned just in time to watch as Yura raised his staff over his head, held by one end, and swung the staff straight downward.

The iron-hard staff struck the Yoma directly in the face. Purple blood sprayed out from the mouth as fangs loosened in the Yoma's mouth. Yura's feet landed on the monster's shoulders a moment later, and he quickly jumped off, landing smoothly.

He ran a few steps over to Osrik, who was gasping for the breath that the pressure on his chest had deprived him of. Fortunately, the Yoma had blocked Osrik's view of Yura's superhuman leap.

The Yoma reeled back in pain, spitting blood and a few fangs from its jaws. Its high voice was slurred by the blood in its mouth. "You bastard! Where'd you come from?"

Yura ignored the Yoma, grabbed Osrik's wrist and lifted him to his feet. "You alright, my friend?"

Osrik took a deep breath and said "I will be in a moment." Osrik straightened himself and reached into his belt. From an inside pocket of his jacket, he pulled out an elaborate hand scythe, with the blade extending over the top of the wooden handle, and curving up into a sharp point on top.

The wooden handle was attached to a chain in the bottom, which unravelled from within Osrik's belt as he pulled out his weapon.

Yura looked at the blade with interest. "Is that a Kusari Gama? I haven't seen one of those in ages, and never one that elaborate."

Osrik pulled out the weighted end from his belt. This part was large, and shaped like a half of a sphere. The chain connected to the flat end, and metal hooks extended back from four points near the chain.

Osrik took a firmer grip on the handle and swung the weighted end in a figure eight pattern. Yura asked him "How on earth did you get a hold of it? I wasn't even aware that they made those anymore."

Osrik looked at Yura from the side of his eye, still focusing the bulk of his attention on the Yoma. It's the only relic I have left of a life I chose to leave behind. It's not something I like to talk about." Osrik now turned all of his attention back to the Yoma. "Now stand back, my friend. If it looks like I can't kill it, run."

Yura chuckled quietly. "Who do you think you're talking to? I might not look it, but I am well versed in the art of battle." Yura twirled his staff viciously through the air, stopping with the staff held out in front of him in a battle stance. "Though I must admit, I don't make a habit of fighting Yoma."

Osrik cringed. He hoped that the old man wouldn't get hurt, but against a Yoma, he wasn't going to refuse help that was offered freely. "Alright then. Try and keep up."

Yura laughed harder. "I will, as long as you don't slow me down."

The Yoma howled with fury. It had almost fully recovered from Yura's attack. The stars before its eyes had faded, the loose teeth had solidified and the lost ones were already starting to grow back.

At the same moment, Yura and Osrik, and the Yoma ran at each other. Fangs and blade shone in the night, metallic wood whistled through the air.

The Yoma raised its claws, one back to each ear and launched its hands forward on rubberized arms. Yura intercepted the lethal assault with his staff. The arm continued to lengthen, lifting Yura off the ground and hurtling him into a tree. His back hit the trunk with a bone-crushing impact.

Osrik ducked beneath the deadly talon and continued on to the Yoma. He couldn't worry about Yura right now, or they were both dead. The Yoma lashed out with its leg. The thrust aimed for Osrik's stomach would have killed him had it hit.

But Osrik was no stranger to battle. He saw the attack from the corner of his eye and reacted. He kicked off of the ground, hurtling himself out of range of the attack, and out of range of his intended strike. Luckily, the Kusari Gama is not restricted by proximity.

Osrik released the wooden handle and flicked his opposite wrist. With the speed and accuracy of a striking snake, the deadly scythe flew straight and true for the Yoma's eye.

With a twist of the head, the Yoma avoided blindness. The chained scythe sailed harmlessly past the monster's head, and the Yoma raised its retracted arm to take off Osrik's head.

The man smiled cruelly and flicked his wrist vertically. The motion sent a ripple through the Kusari Gama chain.

The blade whipped down. The chain hit the Yoma's right shoulder. The long chain wrapped around the Yoma's bicep, the scythe moved faster as the free length of chain shortened. As the final length of chain ended, the long point of the scythe penetrated the Yoma's flesh at the elbow joint.

A cry of pain was loosed from the Yoma's twisted lips. Osrik wrapped the chain around his wrist, pulling it taught to immobilize the penetrated arm. The Yoma looked at its arm, appearing to be almost uncomprehending of the injury.

It then looked up and smiled at Osrik. It reached up with its uninjured limb and grabbed the chain. Only then did Osrik realize his mistake. He wasn't used to fighting opponents as strong as a Yoma.

It yanked hard on the chain. Before Osrik could disentangle the chain from his wrist, he was hurtling through the air. Ignoring the pain, the Yoma raised its injured arm, driving the blade of the Kusari Gama deeper into the joint. The claws readied to impale the flying warrior, and launched as five lethal whips.

The arm jerked back, and the five extended claws flew all around Osrik's head, not a one grazing his flesh. Osrik managed to get a foot on the ground and changed his trajectory, sliding around the Yoma. The Yoma cried in pain as Osrik puzzled over the cause of his miraculous rescue.

"Sorry I took so long. You just seemed to be having so much fun, it seemed a shame to interrupt you." Osrik looked over and saw Yura holding a length of the Kusari Gama chain, twisted around his staff. With a yank, Yura stripped the blade from the Yoma's elbow and sent the chain unravelling from the arm.

The blade soared through the air, trailing violet blood, and landed right in Yura's hand. With a deft movement, Yura disentangled the chain from his staff and handed the weapon back to Osrik, who still held the weighted end. "I believe this belongs to you."

Osrik accepted his weapon back. "Nice timing. Do you think you're up to finishing this? It looks like you've had the wind knocked out of you."

"Do I really? I was just getting warmed up." Yura ran at the Yoma. The monster lashed out with its arm, extending once again, Yura just kept charging heedless of the lethal claws heading at him.

As he expected, the Kusari Gama weight caught the Yoma just behind the wrist, and the arm was yanked astray. Yura smiled. It was nice having someone to watch his back.

Yura put his legs out in front, feet sliding in the dirt until he was within inches of the Yoma's body. He got his feet under him and thrust straight up with his staff. Osrik heard bone crack as the gnarled wooden end hit the Yoma square in the jaw.

Back peddling, Yura tried to get out of range before the Yoma could counterattack. He was just a little to slow.

The Yoma caught him by the collar of his shirt, cutting short his escape. It lifted Yura high into the air, snarling and spitting in his face. Even as Yura watched, the Yoma's broke jaw straightened and healed. Yura had never seen a normal Yoma this fast at healing.

Looking down the Yoma's gullet, Yura had a moment of inspiration. He swung his feet forward and planted them on the Yoma's shoulders. He took his staff in a two-handed grip and stabbed it right down the Yoma's throat.

The smooth wooden shaft slid several feet down the Yoma's oesophagus, and lodged in the beast's stomach. Unable to breathe, the Yoma released its captive. Yura fell to the ground and made his way back to Osrik's side.

Acting on its first instinct, the Yoma bit down on the staff, trying to shatter it. The Yoma could not even scratch the wood for the metal that the wood had absorbed. All it did was chip a tooth.

The Yoma reached up and grabbed the staff, trying to pull it out. Osrik whipped his chain at it again, latching the weighted end onto the arm trying to dislodge the staff. He and Yura both grabbed the chain and yanked down, driving the staff deeper into the Yoma's innards. The monster gagged on the wood, coughing up purple blood.

Osrik and Yura exchanged glances. Right now, the Yoma had its eyes fixed skyward. The staff lodged in its stomach, extending out from its mouth, prevented the Yoma from realigning its head. It might as well have been blind right then.

The pair of warriors released the chain in unison. The Yoma's arm was finally allowed to move upwards, wrenching the staff from its throat. As the staff cleared the Yoma's jaws, Yura and Osrik ran in.

The Yoma had to raise its arm very high to pull the staff free. Osrik took advantage of this to drive the point of his scythe deep into the soft tissue of the Yoma's underarm. When the blade was withdrawn, a whistle of air along with a torrent of blood from the wound told Osrik that he had punctured a lung.

A scream of pain and a welter of blood was loosed from the Yoma's lips. The Yoma dropped the staff in its pain, and Yura ducked around the Yoma's left side to pick up the blood soaked weapon.

Osrik danced back out of the Yoma's attack range. He released the wooden handle and swung the blade around in a dizzying circle. Now the blade that arched over the main scythe blade came into play.

Most Kusari Gama just had a flattened piece of metal on the top side of the blade, and the weapon could be deflected with proper timing. When combined with the circling of the chain, the sharpened upper edge made it impossible to penetrate the area of the blade without becoming victim to that edge.

Yura now had his staff in hand and was standing a distance behind the Yoma. "You're very skilled with that thing," he shouted to Osrik. "I must say, I'm impressed."

"Thank you. You're not bad yourself." As the two men complimented each other, the Yoma was trying to decide which of the two to kill first. It was having a great degree of difficulty with both of them, but the one with the blade appeared to be the most dangerous one.

The Yoma decided to brave Osrik's circle of death. It caught the blade in its palm, the main point of the scythe going straight through. Osrik flicked his wrist and pulled the blade free before the Yoma could grab the weapon and take it from him.

Yura saw that the Yoma was still leaking blood from its side and mouth, and even the superficial wound to its hand wasn't healing. He and Osrik were breathing pretty hard, but the Yoma had taken a lot of damage. It was wearing down, and the chances of winning were going up very quickly.

Of course, if it had ever really come down to it, Yura wouldn't have hesitated to release his power and wipe out the other Yoma, but Osrik was skilled enough that it really didn't seem necessary. Between the two of them backing each other up, the only injuries were some minor bruising and a small cut on Osrik's shoulder.

As the Yoma charged at Osrik, it snarled, blood foaming from its twisted lips. Osrik flung the weighted end of the chain at the Yoma's head. The chain sailed past the Yoma's head. As the monster readied its claws to kill Osrik, it wondered why he missed.

Yura grabbed the weight and flung it back, past the other side of the Yoma's head. The chain wrapped tight around the Yoma's neck. Yura grabbed the end on its return, planted his feet on the Yoma's back and pulled. Once more the Yoma found itself strangling.

The pressure on its shoulder blades also immobilized the Yoma's claws inches away from penetrating Osrik's heart. Seeing the Yoma so close to his face, struggling move its arms forward for the kill, Osrik took action.

He reversed his grip on the Kusari Gama, so the wooden shaft paralleled his arm, and main scythe blade pointed outward. With the sharp edge directed forward of there, Osrik took a short, sharp step towards the Yoma, and dug the scythe blade deep into its neck.

Yoma are tough creatures. Even weakened beyond the pint of healing even minor wounds, the Yoma would not be beheaded so easily. Try as he might, Osrik could hardly get the blade inching forward after the initial impact, and the Yoma was breaking through the pressure Yura had on its shoulders.

Yura thrust feet harder into the Yoma's back, and at the same moment flicked the chain loose. He pulled it tight a moment later, so the chain lay across the blade of the Kusari Gama, adding his strength to Osrik's.

With a final explosive effort, the two warriors pulled the blade deeper into the Yoma's neck. It hung for a moment as it slid between the vertebrae, but then it came free. Osrik followed the strike through, sweeping the blade in front of his body, flinging the blood off of the polished blade.

As Yoma's head rolled across the dirt, Yura rode the body into the ground. He released the chain and flung it over to Osrik. The two men walked wearily over to the edge of the clearing, and when they turned around to face their fallen foe, their legs collapsed under them.

Yura leaned back with his hands out behind him and started laughing hysterically. "Well, that was fun."

Osrik looked queerly at Yura, taking a moment between gasps for air to say "you are a very strange old man, you know that right?"

Yura stopped laughing and sighed deeply and smiled. "I get that a lot."

"Where were you anyway? I woke up and you were gone."

"I was dealing with a little personal business in the bushes. Did I miss something important?"

"Yes, you did. I woke up when I heard rustling in the bushes in the direction of town. A woman came out asking for a way back to the road. I turn my back to point the way, and she turned into a Yoma and tried to eat me."

Yura cringed. "Ooh, that was pretty important wasn't it?"

"Yes it was. She seemed like a nice young woman too. You just can't trust anyone these days. You never know who might be a Yoma."

Yura laughed gently, looking down at his feet. "Yes. You never quite know."


	12. Chapter 12:A Dangerous Mission

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character.**

**C****hapter ****T****welve**

**A D****angerous ****M****ission**

"So that's the worst of it. We moved the camp and slept the rest of the night, though I can't for the life of me figure out how, after all that excitement."

Osrik laughed. His face then adopted a more serious, but not unhappy expression. "What I can't figure out is how you managed to keep up with me, at your age. And then there's the tree. The Yoma punched you into it so hard that it left an imprint in the trunk."

Yura managed to keep his composure steady. He put his hand on his chin as if trying to recall. "I don't seem to remember hitting the tree. I took the hit on my staff, and ducked out of the hit."

"I guess so. Though the imprint seemed to be human-shaped."

A shrug and slightly perplexed look was all that Yura gave. In Yura's experience, seeming to have an answer for everything was a sure way to be caught in a lie.

He had never been much for lying, but over the course of centuries, any attempt to keep a secret leads to experience in telling lies. His was a big secret, and so required almost constant lying. That didn't mean he enjoyed it.

"Well anyway, after the night, we had a quick breakfast and parted ways. I went around Benalia-" and made a lunch of a small deer that carried him over for three weeks in regards to his raw meat requirements "-and Osrik went off to wherever he was going.

"We only ran into each other once since then, about a month back." Osrik picked up the story from there. "It wasn't anything exciting that time. We just shared a meal in Porowan, a ways up the coast from here, caught up on events in each other's lives, and moved on again."

Deneve was twitching her ankle with impatience. "And that takes us to the present, I assume?"

"Pretty much. Now, do any of you have a sense of Miria yet?" Osrik pulled back a curtain and looked out the window. "She should have found us by now."

He looked over at the women around him. "None of you are actively suppressing your Yoki are you?" They all shook their heads. "Then what's taking so…"

Osrik smiled. "Well, guess the wait is over." Out the window, a warrior of the organization could be seen walking towards the inn.

Yura moved himself over to the window. "Hm. Another near-perfect example of a woman. I'm starting to think that the organization picks its candidates based on their looks."

Miria was as lovely as any of the warriors managed by the organization. Her face was as perfect as a person could be expected to have. Her hair was longer than most warriors choose to wear it, coming down to the center of her back. Her hair parted from high on her forehead, and long, spiky bangs ran from that point over the front of each shoulder.

Helen laughed into her hand. "Don't say that to her face. Just because she isn't allowed to kill you doesn't mean you want to be on her bad side."

"It wasn't a comment on her. Any warrior ranked in the single digits must deserve the position. It just seems to me that the people who decide on candidates are picky about looks." Yura gestured out across the room. "Take yourselves for example."

Helen smiled, not used to any kind of flattery, regardless of who it came from. Deneve just huffed slightly and stared out the window. Miria would be coming into the hotel within minutes.

Yura watched as Miria approached. He made note that her armour was heavier than that of most warriors. The shoulder pads extended a bit farther and the arm and leg braces, though more simply constructed, were substantially thicker. Yura figured the organization liked to protect their better warriors.

More interesting to him was the reaction of the people. Where the group he came in with was met with welcoming words and respect, people backed away from Miria. The response didn't strike Yura has stemming from any kind of prejudice against Claymores, but rather out of a sense of intimidation from Miria.

Osrik waved from the upper window. Miria acknowledged him with a slight nod of her head. A few minutes later, she came into the room. Yura could have sworn that the temperature in the room dropped by several degrees.

Miria appeared to be as cold as an arctic winter. Her face showed almost no sign of having ever shown any significant type of emotion. He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. If Osrik's depiction of her was to be even remotely believed, then she probably just made a bad first impression.

But whatever she might be like, Yura couldn't let his guard down. If anyone was going to uncover his presence, it was her. Now the real test of his ability to conceal his Yoki began.

Osrik smiled and looked over at her. "Good to see you Miria."

"Hello Osrik." Miria also nodded in turn to each of the warriors seated around the bed.

"Yo Miria. Long time no see." Helen swung her legs over to the other side of the bed with a look of mock annoyance on her face. "Don't you have anything to say to us for making us wait?"

Miria surveyed the people in the room, taking careful note of everyone, especially Yura, the only one there she had never met, though she had heard of him from Osrik.

"It took me longer than I expected to determine that there were no Yoma directly in the town. I detected an odd presence, but I lost track of it."

"That's not like you." Deneve turned away from the window. "I wouldn't have expected you to give up after picking up a trail."

"What I sensed wasn't Yoki, but something else." Yura thought that what she had sensed was probably a hint of his own Yoki, before he had put it under complete restraint upon encountering Helen and Deneve.

From any significant distance, his Yoki would not have seemed like normal Yoki at all. He concluded that the vague sense of his unusual Yoki was what Miria had sensed, and also why Deneve seemed somewhat suspicious of him.

"I wasn't expecting there to be any Yoma in the town." Osrik clenched his hands together and looked down at the polished wood floor. "I would assume by now that you all know more or less what's going on?"

The warriors all nodded, shifting their eyes to the floor. Clare was the first to speak up. "An Awakened Being hunt. That's the only reason that four warriors would be gathered in a single place."

Raki's face suddenly became very downcast. He kept silent, but the slight quivering at the edge of his mouth implied that he really wanted to say something.

"Yes. But this will be an Awakened Being hunt like none before."

Yura waved his hand at Osrik. "Excuse me, but they might know what's happening here, but could you fill me in please?" Yura knew what an Awakened Being was. He just wanted to confirm the situation he had gotten himself into.

Looking over at him with a look of regret, Osrik said "an Awakened Being is an organization warrior who has passed their limits. The Yoma power that gives them strength takes over, and they become monsters, just like the Yoma.

They revel in slaughter and feeding on human flesh. Like Yoma, they need to be killed. Unfortunately, though we don't understand why, Awakened Beings are far more powerful than any Yoma, so Awakened Being hunts are very dangerous."

That confirmed it. Yura was in over his head on this one, though that didn't mean that he was going to duck out yet. That just meant that he would have to be very careful.

Clare looked over at Osrik. "That explains why we are all here. Now I want to know why we need a boat."

"The organization believes that this Awakened Being has been travelling from port to port, feeding on the fishermen. Miria and I tracked it from our section of the coast. As far as we know, it has never attacked except over the water. Chances are, if we want to find it before it moves on again, we'll have to go out on the water."

"Does it replace fishermen, or strike from under the water?"

"Sorry Deneve, we don't know for sure. No one has ever actually seen the target. But the organization guesses that the Awakened Being hides near the shore until it sees a likely target, then replaces a shipmate shortly after the ship's departure." Osrik sighed. "Unfortunately, there's not a lot more information on it. This one's very elusive. Like I said, no one has ever even caught a glimpse of it."

Miria gazed out the window and at the ocean. "That complicates things. Over the water is a very dangerous place to fight. A boat would give little room to manoeuvre. And then there is the process of actually acquiring a boat. It seems unlikely that any of the fishermen would volunteer one for such a mission, or the crew to effectively operate one."

Yura cheerfully piped in. "I can help with that one." Clare and Raki aside, everyone in the room turned to look at Yura. "I just happen to own a large fishery in town. I'm not sure about a crew, but I can get you a large sizeable boat. That'll be a good start at least. If it will help save lives, I won't begrudge you a boat."

He saw Osrik's stare in particular. "What? I had mentioned my business holdings hadn't I? No?"

So you're just going to give us a boat?" Deneve, already suspicious of Yura, furrowed her brow. "Despite the high likelihood that you won't be getting it back?"

Yura shrugged noncommittally. "Well, you've got a point. I suppose I can't just let you take the boat so easily, none of you having had any sailing experience and all. I guess I'll have to come with you to make sure you don't crash it into a shoal or something."

Yura saw a subtle twitch of Miria's eyebrow, the first reaction he'd gotten out of her yet. Osrik, on the other hand, was looking at him like he was insane.

In fact, he even asked "Do you have a death wish old man? We were lucky enough to survive an attack from a small Yoma. Do you really think you'd have a chance against an Awakened Being?"

"So you're not going, then?" Yura's eyebrow rose curiously.

"No, I was going to. I have enough sailing experience to keep the boat on the water."

Shrugging again, Yura argued "at my age, I've seen a lot of things, and what I haven't seen intrigues me. Besides, do you really think you can captain the ship alone, with first-time sailors on board? I'm guessing no."

Grudgingly, Osrik nodded his head. It had been a while since he had worked aboard any kind of sailing vessel, and he had never had to give the orders aboard one. He just hoped he could manage the four inexperienced warriors.

As much as he hated to admit it, he needed another experienced had on whatever ship he got hold of. Yura was as good a man as he'd be able to find, ad he was a proven fighter, so at least he'd know enough not to get in the way.

"It's settled then." Yura looked out of the window, gazing into the fading light over the ocean, one of his favourite views across the entire world. "I'll get the boat from the fisheries tomorrow, and we'll head out by noon. Now I'm going downstairs for some real food. Anyone care to join me?"

Osrik and Raki decided to join him. While the warriors didn't need much food, their bodies did have substantial needs. They didn't figure there would be anything of interest on the menu, but as long as it was edible, they would likely eat it.

The four women decided to just go to turn in for the night, and digest all of the information from the day. Helen and Deneve took one room, Clare and Miria took another. None of them slept very well.

* * *

Yura and Osrik were woken early the next morning by a sharp rapping on the door. Yura opened one eye, just long enough to see Osrik getting up to open it. Yura noted that Osrik even slept in his black uniform. He rolled over and closed his eyes again, hesitant to leave the best bed he'd had available for months.

Raki didn't even budge from his bed. Yura chuckled silently, thinking how the kid could sleep through the end of the world if he were allowed to. Just as he was settling back in, Osrik came over and shook him. "Come on. Miria says it's time to get to work."

"Really? What time is it?"

"About two hours pat sun up. We should get moving if we want to leave harbour by noon." Though Yura didn't acknowledge this directly, he did grunt and roll himself out of bed. He hadn't slept well the previous night. He couldn't let himself go into a deep sleep lest his Yoki leak out and alert the warriors in the other rooms to his identity.

Still looking very groggy, Yura walked over to Raki. "Time to get up. We've got work to do before sundown." Raki just groaned tiredly and wrapped himself more tightly in the thick blanket. Yura grinned maliciously at Osrik and grabbed the edge of the thick blanket. He yanked hard.

Like in some sort of circus act, Raki was lifted up off the bed, spinning several times in mid air as the blanket was unwrapped from his body. He landed flat on his back, directly above where he came from on the mattress.

Miria watched passively from the doorway, feeling slightly annoyed by the act against Raki, though she didn't show it. Osrik was working very hard not to laugh, but failed miserably when Raki made a dizzy effort to stand up.

"That's a really cruel way to wake a guy." Raki scowled at the two men as they struggled to contain their amusement. After a few moments, Raki managed to steady himself on his feet after the dizzying twirl.

"I know, I know. Sorry, but I just couldn't resist. No harm done, I hope?"

Raki couldn't keep an angry face for very long. A moment later he too was laughing. "No harm done. I just wish I'd been awake to see that." Raki yawned and stretched. He rubbed his eyes and asked "where are we going?"

"Well, first we're going to get breakfast downstairs. After that, I'm going to take everyone down to the fisheries and get ourselves a boat for this dangerous mission of ours."

The good mood that Raki had been in vanished instantly. He was quiet and solemn as he walked down the stairs. Yura exchanged a confused glance with Osrik and asked "was it something I said?"

* * *

Author's note:

Sorry for the long time between updates. I've been in a creative funk for quite a while. University has been a lot busier this term too.

Anyways, I'm back at it, and while I might not be able to do things quickly, progress will happen. The storyline itself will be a bit slow for a while too, but please bare with me. I just couldn't find a way to quickly wrap up the slow stuff.


	13. Chapter 13:Trouble With the Staff

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character.**

**C****hapter ****T****hirteen**

**T****rouble ****W****ith the ****S****taff**

The breakfast served in the inn wasn't very good. The food was well prepared, as the desk clerk was a reasonably skilled chef, but there was absolutely nothing special about it.

When Yura asked about it, the big man replied "we don't get a lot of imports here anymore. Business is so bad that the merchants can't stock up on quality ingredients. The stuff you've got is the best I can round up from the market. I'd have better stuff if I could find it."

Yura patted the man on the shoulder in sympathy. "Keep at it. Hopefully, my friends will have the problem taken care of, and then the town will come back to life." The man nodded his head, and went over to help one of the few other customers in the room.

"Well, let's get moving, shall we?" As the group left the inn and turned towards the harbour, Yura maintained a cheerful face. None of his companions missed the fact that a little bit of the spring in his step was gone, and his eyes didn't shine quite so brightly.

Yura only got more sombre as they approached the harbour. He hadn't seen before. No, that wasn't that simple. He had chosen not to see. With its primary industry dying, the town was also dying.

The streets were poorly maintained. Litter was scattered all over the place and there were ruts and lumps in the soil that should have been raked out weeks ago.

The buildings were falling into disrepair. Paint chipped off the walls, and many shingles were sitting askew. In some places, windows were boarded up and doors hung off their hinges.

Very few people were in the streets. Many had left to try and find work elsewhere. The few that remained in this end of town looked unhealthily thin, and unwashed, though in general these people didn't look desperate yet. They sat on the edge of starvation and extreme poverty, but hadn't fallen there yet.

Things only got worse as they got closer to the harbour. The Yoma problem must have been going on for a long time for things to have deteriorated this much. The investors probably left at the first mention of the word Yoma, and the state of the town had just gotten worse from there.

It wasn't all that surprising to Yura that it took so long for help to arrive. Malamar was a small town, and not high on the organization's priority list. With only one warrior having to cover a large area, places like this were often overlooked for long periods of time, sometimes being wiped out completely before help would be sent.

An Awakened Being was also a good excuse to put off sending aid.

A brief surge of loathing passed through Yura. If the lord had just been willing to pay a bit extra, this problem would have been dealt with quite quickly, rather than stagnating just to save himself some money. He also disliked the organization for letting places like this slip between the cracks.

But at least there was something being done now, and the town wasn't dead yet, so better late than never.

Clare and Raki walked a ways back of the rest of the group. Clare was as calm and collected as ever, but Raki was quite nervous. "Clare, do you really have to go on this hunt? I mean, last time you fought an Awakened Being, you were beaten up pretty badly."

"Of course I have to go. It is an assignment from the organization, and I can't refuse them." Clare turned her head slightly and looked at Raki from the side of her eyes. "Don't worry. I now have some experience fighting Awakened Beings, and I understand the abilities of my team mates. This battle should go more smoothly than the last one."

Raki nodded his head and stared at his feet. "I guess so. But I still don't like it."

"You wouldn't be yourself if you weren't concerned. Try not to worry too much. We should be back within a week of leaving, if we find the target at all."

Once more Raki nodded his head and continued on in silence.

* * *

After what seemed like an eternity, the group arrived at the Water Sword Fisheries, so named as it once specialized in swordfish.

It was the only fishery still in business at the moment. It still looked shabbier than it used to, but unlike most of the other run-down buildings along the water line, it looked like it was still maintained.

Yura looked around at the other decrepit structures. "Well, this place held up far better than I expected, all things considered. Maybe that letter bashing the manager wasn't deserved after all."

They made their way inside. Though it wasn't exactly a hub of activity, there were still people there. The numbers were sparse, but a number of the fish cleaning stations were still in use. Men and women gutted and de-boned the fish, while others took the scales and tossed the fully cleaned chunks of fish into barrels.

A short, thin, balding man looked towards Yura and the warriors. He climbed down the ladder which came down from the observation post that he stood on.

When the man got a little bit closer, Yura got a better look at his features. With close-set eyes, a long nose and his hunched way of walking, the man looked to Yura much like a weasel. The lanky grey hair didn't help the effect.

The man walked right up to Yura. He stood inches away, though he had to look quite far up to meet his eyes. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" the little man growled in a raspy voice.

He poked Yura in the stomach with a crooked index finger and said "This is private property. You've got no right to barge in here, especially bringing these witches with you."

For the moment Yura saw the man, he didn't like him. Yura forced himself to maintain a cheery appearance, took the man's finger and shook it up and down gently, like a polite hand shake. "I'm Yura. It's nice to meet you."

The weasel-like man's already pasty skin drained of all of its remaining colour. "Y-Yura. As in owner of this fishery Yura?"

Yura snorted with amusement. "So, you've heard of me? Now, who are you?"

Colour returned to the man's face and he adopted a smile that was almost too exuberant. Yura knew instantly that the man was simply trying to flatter him, the employer, the man who determines his salary. "My name's Gerald, sir."

The excessively cheerful voice only deepened Yura's dislike of the man, but if he was doing a good job, then that wasn't intolerable. Gerald continued saying "I was the head accountant working under Bernard, and took his job after he retired last year. I think you'll be really impressed with the way things are going."

And indeed Yura was impressed. Though the fishery wasn't working at anywhere near full capacity, it was doing much better than he would have expected. "How have you managed to keep things running so smoothly? No fishermen are really willing to go back out to the ocean right now, so where do the fish come from?"

"Well, sir, I _personally_ noticed that nobody was killed 'til they got out to the ocean, so the fishing happens in the bay. Some people also fish from shore all along a few miles of coast."

Yura didn't believe that the man was telling the truth. Gerald's tone of voice didn't really sound sincere to his well-trained ear. And one would have to be blind to miss the accusing glares that the workers in earshot sent at Gerald.

Turning a suspicious eye back to Gerald, Yura committed himself mentally to speaking to the other employees.

But that would have to wait. Yura had more pressing business to attend to. "Now, Gerald, I'm not here just for one of my routine inspections. I actually do have a practical reason for coming here."

"And what's that, sir?"

"I need to take a boat."

"A boat? What for? What could you possibly do with a boat?"

"Well, it's not just for me. My associates – " Yura gestured at Osrik, Raki and the warriors, who had thus far just followed him and remained silent, " – and I are going to take it out to sea and try and kill the Yoma that everyone's been having so much trouble with."

"You're going to take one of _my_ boats to try and kill a Yoma?" Gerald's face was flushing with anger. "I need all of those boats to go and catch fish! I can't lose one to a Yoma. I won't allow it."

Yura's formerly cheery demeanour vanished in an instant, replaced with a look of annoyance that a teacher might give a misbehaving child. "First off, it's _my_ boat. You have no right to try and claim otherwise. I own this fishery after all and I only _asked_ for the boat just to be polite. Second, if we kill the Yoma, you'll have the ocean to fish in again, so you _should_ be happy to lend out a boat."

Gerald's face was bright red now. Veins were standing out on his forehead below his hairline. He started shouting "You have no right…" but was cut short by a sharp glance from Yura. The blood left from Gerald's face, replaced by a look of fear.

Yura smirked at seeing the man's face. "Thank you. Now, for my final point. I really don't like you, nor do I trust you." Yura looked around and saw the employees from the fishery gathering were gathering around, like children in a playground fight.

A pretty young woman in a green leather apron caught his eye. She had looked especially angry when Gerald had claimed credit for the current success. Yura looked at her and asked gently. "Ma'am, what's your name?"

The woman balked for a moment, green eyes looking at Yura nervously. She hesitantly said "I'm Cynthia, sir."

"Well, Cynthia, perhaps you could tell me. Whose idea was it really to expand fishing in the bay, and from the shore along the coast?"

"My sister's sir, Julie. She's busy at home today. Her son is sick. But it was her that came up with the idea. She even helped make the arrangements."

Yura smiled gently at her. "Thank you, my dear." He turned to look back at Gerald, once again visibly furious. "As for you, sir, you are henceforth removed from your position. I received a letter a while back saying that you were doing a terrible job as manager. I doubted that upon my arrival, but now I see it to be true."

"The letter complained that you were cruel and controlling to the people beneath you, and those people that those people managed to keep the fishery in tact in spite of you, not because of you. That letter was signed 'Julie' by the way."

Gerald stood completely dumbstruck. His unfocussed eyes stared off into space, as if he could not even begin to comprehend what had just happened. A moment later, life seemed to return to his eyes.

His face flushed once more with blood and fury was painted on his features. "You can't do this to me. I've worked here for fifteen years. Fifteen years! You have no right to just come in here and throw me out!"

Spit flew from the former manager's lips as he continued to rant. When the fury had finally burned itself out, Yura looked at the man as the colour drained from his face and his breath began coming in short gasps.

Looking upon the man with what could almost be described as pity, Yura said "you know, I was originally just going to demote you back to accountant. I knew the moment I saw you that you were terrible with people, but those years of service prove that you are very capable with numbers."

Yura sighed deeply. "What changed my mind was the fact that you lied about having come up with the new fishing strategy. It proves that you are untrustworthy in any position. I wouldn't be surprised if you had been stealing money from the fishery when you worked as an accountant." Gerald stiffened. Yura had struck a nerve on that point. "Now, as I said, you are fired. I want you out of here immediately."

Gerald looked ready to make one last argument, but a threatening look from Yura cut him off. Seething with fury, but also fearful of Yura for a reason he couldn't explain, Gerald shuffled out of the fishery as fast as he could.

"Now that this matter has been taken care of, who's in charge after Gerald?"

There was a period of silence. Finally a man in the back spoke up. "Gerald never appointed anyone as assistant manager. I guess he was worried they'd try and replace him."

"Well, I think that's for the best. Anyone he appointed would likely be as bad as him. Now, thinking back to my last visit, you and your sister were doing quite well weren't you? You both seemed very competent. Would she be interested in a management position? It was thanks to her that this place is still running, after all."

Cynthia stopped and gaped. Yura found that he was getting that reaction a lot lately. Cynthia quickly spoke up though, not letting the silence hang in the air. "Yes, sir. I'm sure Julie would be very happy o do it."

The other people in the fishery looked at each other with silent approval. They had all worked with Julie for quite a while, and thought she would be a good choice.

Yura smiled and nodded his head sharply. "Good. Women aren't given nearly enough opportunity in this world. Some towns would be up in arms at a woman having a job like this."

Yura thought back to when he, Raki and Clare had first arrived in the town, and the usually reviled Claymore was met with joy. "That's part of why I love this place. Everyone's so accepting."

And, as Julie's not here right now, I'm going to appoint you assistant manager. I think the former head of staff has caused enough trouble for one day. Shall we make the arrangements for that boat I need?"

"Right away, sir." Yura headed off to the fishery docks with Cynthia to look at the shipping charts, to find a suitable vessel. Osrik, Raki, Clare, Helen, Deneve and Miria headed back to the Bridge and Thorn Inn to make their own preparations for the trip.


	14. Chapter 14:Memory of the Siren

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character. **

**Chapter Fourteen **

**Memory of the Siren **

As Yura walked with Cynthia to the docks he felt very satisfied with himself. He had removed a tyrannical manager from one of his places of investment, and elevated deserving individuals as a result. At least, he hoped they were deserving. He'd check back in a few months just to be sure.

In addition to that, he was impressed that he had managed to keep his Yoki completely suppressed, despite getting so worked up by Gerald.

Come to think of it, he also managed to keep his Yoki hidden despite still using his shape-shifted wings as a substitute coat.

Though he had quickly come to maintain their form like that habitually, it wasn't a natural shape for them to be in. Having them mimic natural skin texture was easy, but giving them the appearance of cloth had taken constant focus at first. He would also have a problem if he were ever asked to remove the "coat", as it was still firmly connected to his back.

He was amazed that he had managed to let his wings keep that form while fully suppressing his Yoki, but he was glad that he could. The alternative was getting into a life or death struggle with at least three Claymores, maybe four depending on how Clare decided to involve herself.

Deciding that it was better than risking a slip, Yura committed to buying a new coat here and putting his wings away.

While he and Cynthia had been walking, the young lady had been telling him about the fishery, the income, work schedules and so on. Though he had mostly been paying attention to his own thoughts, a part of him had been listening.

They arrived at the docks and saw a ship resting on wooden struts raised out of the water. It was a three-masted ship with white sails and dark brown, nearly black paint.

There were reels visible above the railing. From Yura's knowledge of ships, each was meant to loose a net. There were five such structures on the side of the ship facing Yura and Cynthia. This was more than on most ships, hence the name _Ocean Spider_.

In the middle, where one should have been, was a section of unpainted wood. It was odd, but there would be time to deal with that later.

"So the only ship available to us right now is the _Ocean Spider_? There are no other ships coming in soon?"

"No sir. The other ships are netting fish in the bay. The _Spider_ is in dry dock right now, so it is available."

"Why is it in dry dock?" Yura asked, thinking back to the off colour siding. "Is something wrong with it?"

"Nothing serious. A net caught on some rocks and the reel that the net gets attached to ripped off. It took a good chunk of hull with it, and a support beam below deck cracked and needed replacing. The net is still out of service, but the hull and support are fixed. The _Ocean Spider_ is as sea worthy as it will ever be.

The paint will be taken care of by the time you get going. It's necessary to seal it from water."

"That's fine then. I was hoping for something smaller." Though still small enough to manoeuvre easily in the bay, it was a sizable vessel. The minimum crew to manage the entire thing was a dozen good men. Yura was going to have to make it work with just six, four of which had no experience with sailing to speak of.

Sensing his concern, Cynthia spoke up. "If you're worried about running the ship, I can probably convince some of the people here to get on board with the mission."

"No Cynthia. If any of them volunteer on their own, that's one thing, but I'm not going to ask anyone to go. This is going to be dangerous, and I won't have their deaths on my conscience."

"All right, sir. There is one more problem I should tell you about."

"And what's that?"

"The _Spider_ has no provisions on it. All of the supplies are on the other ships. We can get barrels of fresh water, but you'll have to get things like food and lamp oil from town. If you want, I can at least get a few people to help out."

"That would be perfect. I think we can buy it from the other fisheries, if they're not using it. That will save us the trouble of boxing it before loading it up."

"Great. I'll get Edward and Harry on it right away." Yura nodded at Cynthia and the two headed out to find the two men. She was settling into her new job very nicely.

**

* * *

**

The group had arrived back at the Bridge and Thorn inn, and were packing their gear for the mission. There were tarps to conceal their swords, and heavy cloaks, meant to stave off the cold ocean spray, as well as to hide their identities.

With this Awakened Being having proven very elusive so far, it might not show itself if it saw the warriors. If it was even still around. It may have moved on already with the pickings being as slim as they were on the sea currently.

"I think Yura handled the situation quite admirably," Osrik said, making small talk.

"Yeah. Who would have guessed the old goat would be so nice to his workers." Helen tossed her stuffed pack on the bed and took a sip of water directly from the pitcher they had been provided. She put the pitcher back down on the dresser and lay down on the bed. "Most businessmen are complete jerks, especially when they get older."

"Yura is a very unusual person" Clare said offhandedly. She was just stuffing her cloak into her already overfull backpack. "I haven't spent much time with him, but nothing about him is quite what you might expect at first glance."

Clare was personally grateful that no one had uncovered Yura's identity as a Yoma yet. He was very good at hiding his Yoki, so she wasn't very worried about him being discovered, but she still worried about what she would have to do if it came down to choosing sides.

Deneve, who was standing in a corner with her arms crossed, looked over at the group. "I don't trust him. I can't explain it, but something doesn't feel right about him."

"I agree. I can't place it, but something about his presence unsettles me." Miria had just been staring out the window, looking out at the sea.

"Really?" Osrik said. "I've always felt very comfortable around him."

"Same here." Helen sat up and looked around at her comrades. "He seems like a real nice guy. He is kind of weird though."

"Yes Helen. He seems very 'weird' indeed." Deneve looked at Miria. "Has Osrik told you how he met Yura?"

"He told me of the encounter with the Yoma shortly after it happened, but a name was not mentioned in the telling."

Nodding her head, Deneve continued. "The fact that he even survived a brief time in a fight against a Yoma is suspicious, even with Osrik's help. His level of participation in killing it makes him seem even more suspicious."

Helen shrugged and lay back down. She wondered how long Raki was going to be in the kitchen. He's gone downstairs for chow quite a while ago. It wasn't so much that she was actually hungry, but more that she was bored and eating gave her something to do.

"What about you Clare?" Miria turned and looked her sharply in the eye. "Have you noticed anything suspicious about Yura while you've been travelling with him?"

How best for her to answer this question? "As I said, he is a very unusual person, but I haven't seen any reason for us to distrust him." And she did trust Yura at this point, so she wasn't really lying.

Miria looked back out the window, hoping to catch some sense of what awaited them. She was not totally convinced about Yura's trustworthiness, but she was satisfied for the moment.

The door creaked open and Raki walked through the door carrying a sizeable platter of food.

"Alright," Helen said, swinging her legs over the bed to face Raki. "Chow time."

* * *

As expected, the harbour was almost deserted. The fishery buildings were almost all abandoned, though there were a few that still had a small amount of activity going on inside.

Apparently the Water Sword fishery wasn't the only one exploiting the bay, even though they were doing the best job of it.

Yura approached what seemed a particularly lively one, closely followed by two burly men pulling a large cart, Edward and Harry.

The two men were brothers. They shared broad faces and proportionately broad shoulders. There were some differences between them, such as eye and hair colour, but otherwise they might easily have been twins.

Harry had slicked-back blonde hair and his brother shoulder-length hair that was nearly black. Between the two of them, they were likely as strong as any ox, judging by the look of them.

Yura had them park the cart out in front of the large main doors and proceeded inside. He quickly spotted the man in charge. In addition to looking very depressed, he was the only one there not wearing a work apron. Rather, the man wore a simple grey suit that set off his thin salt-and-pepper beard.

Much as in the Water Sword fishery, there were people cleaning and packaging fish at wooden tables, but there were far fewer open cleaning stations here.

Yura approached the manager. "Hello, sir. My name's Yura. I own the Water Sword fishery." He shook hands with the heavyset man. "I need a little bit of help with something."

"I'm Simon. I'm not sure I can do anything with the sorry state things are in here, and I'm also not sure I can afford to give out help."

"I think you might be able to manage this. I've offered my services to the warriors who came to slay the Yoma. I have a ship for them to use, but it doesn't have any food stores.

Judging by the number of ships you have docked, I would guess that you aren't using many of them and I was wondering if you would consider selling some of your surplus provision crates."

Simon nodded thoughtfully and stroked his beard. "I think I can do that. The stuff was going to start going bad soon anyway. How much do you need?"

Yura pointed to the doors. "I have a cart out there. The crew of the ship is going to be pretty small, and the warriors don't eat very much, so a cartload ought to do."

"Alright. I'll get it loaded, and the two of us will work out the payment."

Yura bowed gently and swept his arm in front of himself theatrically. "Lead the way."

* * *

A short time later, the ox cart was loaded with crates of ship provisions, and Harry and Edward were struggling to pull it back to the fishery. Yura turned and noted the sweat streaming down their faces and thought his estimation of their combined strength might have been a little generous.

Not wanting to trouble them too much, Yura called out "Take a bit of a break. There's no need to kill yourselves here." The burly men pulled the cart a little further so it wasn't in the middle of the road and immediately sat down with their backs to a stack of empty crates.

Yura pondered his next course of action for a moment. "You two rest here. I would like to pick up a few things in town. I'll be back shortly and then we'll get back to work." The men nodded their heads in understanding. Yura scooped them each a cup of water from a nearby rain barrel and headed off towards the market.

It took a while, but Yura managed to locate a clothier among the sparsely populated marketplace. It had apparently once been quite fancy, and likely produced high quality goods. Now, though the stone structure was still quite well tended, simple workers cloths were all that adorned the windows.

Still, it was the best Yura could do right now for a store. Maybe they still had some of their better wares stored in the back or something. He pushed open the door and went inside.

Upon seeing the well dressed customer, the lanky man who leaned over the desk sat straight, and practically drooled as he heard the money bag jingle on Yura's belt. "Hello good sir." The dark-haired clerk's tone reminded Yura unhappily of Gerald's tone as he tried kissing up. "What can I do for you today?"

Still, Yura could hardly blame the man if the times were hard, so Yura kept a cheerful face as he said "I need a new coat, if you don't mind. This one has a few stitches in the back, and I would like it replaced."

The clerk examined the apparently fine quality of Yura's coat, and enthusiastically said "yes, sir. I have some things in the back room. There aren't many people interested in fine wares these days, but I have some leftover from before the market declined."

Within minutes, the man came out from the back with at least a dozen coats draped over his body. It was amazing that the scrawny man didn't collapse from the weight of the fabric.

In another minute they were laid out on the counter. Yura didn't take long to pick. He grabbed two, as he thought it might be a good idea to have a spare. He tried them on. One was a green vest that ended at the waist, and the other was a long, royal blue trench coat with light blue embroidery. The vest fit perfectly, and the blue coat was meant to be a bit loose, so they were good enough.

He paid what the clerk asked and headed swiftly out the door. Now he had to find somewhere to change. "Literally", he chuckled to himself. He felt confident he could do it without releasing his Yoki to any detectable degree.

He found a dark and reasonably clean-looking alley and walked in. He headed for the middle and looked out either end before beginning. Careful to contain his Yoki within his wings, not letting an ounce leak out, they expanded away from his body, and quickly receded through the slits in his shirt and into his back.

He threw the blue coat on, the hem hanging elegantly down to his knees. Yura nodded, satisfied, and prepared to head out of the alley. Unexpectedly, a grubby hand clutched at his sleeve. "Spare some money sir?"

Now focusing on his surroundings rather than on containing his Yoki, Yura was swiftly engulfed in the stench of stale liquor. He looked over and saw a grey, wrinkled old man wearing filthy rags.

The deep creases in his face and the grime engrained into every one of those suggested that this had been a way of life for a long time, living in filth and drowning in alcohol. Yura figured any money was likely to just be spent on more liquor, so he turned to leave.

The man just grabbed harder at Yura's sleeve. "Just enough for some food, sir. I'm dead broke," he slurred.

"Fine." Frustrated and in a hurry, Yura pulled a few low-value copper pieces and handed them to the man. "Now, if you don't mind, I have a ship to catch."

Life bloomed in the man's grey eyes. "Ship? You got a ship? You going on the ocean?"

Intrigued by the man's interest, Yura replied "yes, I am. I am escorting a number of the warriors known as Claymore to kill the Yoma that's been plaguing this place. What of it?" He only used the term Claymore to clarify himself. Few people knew the warrior women as anything else.

The man dropped to his knees and took Yura's hand pleadingly. "Take me with you. I b-beg you, let me go back on the sea."

Yura was truly perplexed now. With the slurring of his voice decreased, yet the man making so little sense, it was hard to tell how drunk he really was. "Did you hear me? I said I'll have Claymores on board, and we're going to kill a Yoma. Do you have any idea how dangerous this will be?"

"I don't care sir." The drunkard started blubbering as he clutched Yura's hand, tears streaming down into his unkempt beard. "I have to hear it again."

"It?"

"The Siren. A few months back, I was sailing, sir. Out a nowhere, this beautiful song came out a the water. Most beautiful thing I ever heard. It was Siren Song.

I listened to it for a long time, sir. Then it stopped, and I looked around and several folk were dead and gutted. I think She was warning us bout the Yoma."

"Are you sure it was warning you? Could the sound have come from the thing that attacked you?"

The man shook his head, and released and uncontrolled belch, loosing another wave of liquor stench. "No, sir. Nothing that sounds so beautiful could be evil. I told the other guys about it, but none a them remember a thing. The guys on shore said I was old and nuts. But I gotta hear it again, I gotta. I've dreamed of that song every night since then."

Yura thought long and hard about this. "Fine then." Yura tossed the man some more money. "Meet me at the Water Sword fisheries in two hours. Use the money to bathe and get some decent clothing. Do your best to sober up in that time. If it smells like you've had even another sip of alcohol, you're staying ashore."

The old man stood up, as straight as his inebriation would allow. "Thank you sir. You won't regret it."

The two parted ways, and Yura thought he may have just found a clue about just what they'd be facing out on the open ocean.


	15. Chapter 15:The Voyage Begins

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character.**

**C****hapter ****F****ifteen**

**T****he ****V****oyage ****B****egins**

Yura arrived at the fishery within half an hour of the encounter with the drunken man. After returning to Harry and Edward, he had helped them to pull the cart. The thing rolled much more smoothly after that, though they attributed it to some rust on the axel cracking, or something like that.

Next, the cargo was unloaded onto a large wooden platform, connected to a massive wooden crane by sturdy chains. On the end opposite the platform was a net filled with rocks, acting as a counterweight.

After a few more rocks were added, the balance was near perfect, and it took only a few men pulling on a series of ropes to lift the platform to get it up and onto the boat. More men on the ship's deck shifted the position of the platform slightly and placed it down so that four cut holes in the platform aligned with four large bolts on the ship deck.

Washers and nuts were attached to the bolts to hold the platform in place. After that, the cargo on the platform was more securely netted down.

Finally, a hand-powered winch was used to extend the chain and gently lower the counterweights to the ground. The crane was then attached to another platform and the process was repeated twice more. The ship was ready to sail.

The crew, unfortunately, was not. As Osrik and Yura had claimed, they knew their way around a ship. The Claymore, however, did not. They did some practice drills before setting off, and they were nearly catastrophic.

While tying a rope for the sails, Clare pulled to hard and shattered the wood it was tied to. There were more posts, but it showed just how inept they were.

Helen's poor excuse for a knot nearly sent a sail, and the wooden beam at the bottom of it, crashing down on Osrik's head. A quick catch by Deneve prevented that disaster.

Miria fared fairly well. She followed directions perfectly as she navigated the upper rigging. Tying lines and trimming sails was little issue for her.

The others caught on to the simpler tasks quite quickly, and though Yura and Osrik would need to cover most of the more complex jobs, the crew was deemed seaworthy.

Yura clapped the dirt off of his hands and declared "just one more thing to wait for."

"And what's that?" Deneve asked indignantly. They were already hours overdue, mostly because of the practice session, and she was getting impatient.

"Our supplementary crew member."

"What?" everyone said in unison.

"Hm. Could have sworn I mentioned it. I met him while I was getting my new jacket. He was a drunkard on the street, but he has plenty of experience on a ship. More importantly, I think he may have seen your target."

"What did he say?" Miria looked at Yura with eyes that were intense, but not suspicious this time.

"He said that something happened right around the time the killings started. He heard a song on the water, lost track of time, and found some of the crew dead shortly after the music stopped."

Helen huffed, crossed her arms and said "he's just old and nuts. And drunk. Are you really going to trust him?"

"Yes, we are." All eyes turned to Miria in shock.

"Please explain that to me." Deneve quizzically scrutinized Miria as she hefted her pack and prepared to board the ship. "Why should we trust the word of a drunken old sailor?"

"Because I believe he has seen our target, or at least heard it." Miria's eyes unfocused a little bit as she looked back into the past, struggling to recall the important details. "I was in Doroway, a city on the Voron Peninsula in my region. The pattern of the Yoma attacks was much the same as it is here.

Much like the local attacks, no one saw the target, and the only three people had any recollection of the encounter at all over the course of the year's worth of attacks. Every one of the witnesses was known for regular drinking."

"Let me guess" Deneve said cynically, "they also talked about a mythical 'Siren' warning them of the attack?"

"That is exactly what they said, what they all said. They claimed that they heard a Siren's song." Miria turned to the ocean and scowled. "Though I doubt there was any such creature, it is possible that the Awakened Being has an ability that hypnotizes its victims. At first, I had assumed the perception of a Siren was a result of the men being drunk. A spreading rumour of the first encounter, and the hysteria that followed, would have explained why the rest of the witnesses claimed the same thing."

Clare nodded calmly. "With this separate account of a Siren, the previous ones seem far more credible. And it's possible that being drunk limited the effects the Awakened Being could have on the person's mind, so they remembered a little bit of the encounter."

"Alright, so if we've figured this all out, why do we have to wait for the old drunk?" Helen leapt up onto the boarding ramp of the ship, at a point double her own height. "Come on. Let's just go."

"Old drunk?" a gruff voice rang out from the door to the fishery. "Who do you think you're talking about?"

Helen turned to see an old man, but one very different than she expected.

"Ah, there you are." Yura walked over to the man, face as creased and wrinkled as ever. Red veins were visible on his red nose, a result of years of hard drinking. But unlike before, every speck of dirt was scrubbed from his skin. It was hard to believe it was the same person.

In place of the tangles and filthy matted dreadlocks was finely combed hair of both face and scalp. Rags were replaced with a simple grey suit. He stood with his feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, like an old military man.

"So, I see my money was well spent." Yura sniffed the air quickly. "And hardly a trace of liquor on your breath. So you really haven't had a drink since we spoke?"

"Not yet, sir" he said brusquely. "I've never gone on a ship without some drinking, but it's never affected my work"

"I can respect that, but I'm still not letting you get drunk on my ship."

"Alright, sir, but I should tell you, I get irritable when I don't at least get a little booze now and then."

"Well, we'll just have to live with that I guess." Yura turned to climb aboard the ship. "Oh, yes, I never did ask your name."

"Cyrus, sir."

"And I'm Yura. I'm glad to have another seasoned sailor aboard. Now, as we are already behind schedule, we'll make the rest of the introductions once we're on the water."

The three men and three of the women went up the boarding ramp to the _Ocean Spider_. Clare stayed behind for a while to give Raki a few parting words.

"Take care of yourself Clare." He had a hard time meeting her eyes. Despite his accommodating words, he still wished that she would stay behind, or that he could at least come with her.

Still, he understood that going would only put him in danger, and distract Clare. That might get them all killed, so he was willing to stay. Clare put a large bag of gold in Raki's hand.

"This will last for several weeks at the inn. If we are not back within a month, use what you have left to get to Rabona. Father Vincent and Galk will take care of you."

"This is just like before. You leave me with money and go off on a dangerous mission." Raki wasn't crying, but just barely. It wouldn't do for Clare to see him that worried.

"This isn't the same as last time. The money I gave you won't last forever, and I don't know how long this trip will take. Yura says that a storm could divert us as far as the northern ocean, or dead air could strand us at sea for a week or more. Either or both of those could happen. Even if we never find the target, the hunt may take longer than the money will last you.

I have no intention of dying, and I am much more confident that I'll live to see you again this time." Clare gazed off into the clouds. She thought of the worst scenario, her dying and leaving Raki alone in the world.

Clare forced a slight smile, making this entire discussion seem more of a formality than anything serious. "But if that should not happen, I've arranged to have word sent to you, so at least you will know for sure what happened to me."

Raki's face lifted as some of the weight from the past few days lifted from his shoulders. Reassured by Clare's words, the two said goodbye, and Clare boarded the ship with the rest of her team.

Cynthia walked up to him as the sails unfurled, and the ship prepared to set off. "Here," she said to Raki, handing him a glass bottle.

"What is it?" He examined the bottle, filled with a blood red liquid, appearing brown through the green glass.

"It's a tradition," Cynthia answered. "You break it across the ship, and they say the crew will find nothing but good fortune on the sea."

Raki smiled happily as the Ocean Spider turned away from the dock, and out towards the exit of the bay. It was already out of his reach. He stared thoughtfully at the bottle of wine. Gripping the bottle by the head, he hurled it with all of his strength at the departing ship.

The bottle spun end over end, and shattered upon striking the ship's stern. The red wine sparkled brightly in the afternoon sun as it flowed down the polished wood. "Good luck Clare."

* * *

Outside of Charrow, on the road to Malamar, a dark gathering was taking place. Only a few men were visible, all resembling common bandits. But even in the city itself, the people felt something inhumanly sinister in the air as it drifted down from the countryside into the stone streets.

A very plain-looking man dressed in simple traveler's leathers paced slowly across the grassy hills towards the mounted figures. When he was within one hundred paces, the armoured rider, with a scar running from his left cheek to his chin drove his animal to meet the traveller. The smaller man would have looked very much out of place had it not been for the air of purpose with which he walked.

"Any progress?" growled the scarred. "You know what it means to have failed."

The traveller smiled maliciously. "Yes, I have made progress. After seeing what you did to the last one to return a failure, do you think I would return otherwise?"

"Do not mock me." The armoured figure's slightest angry glance sent a chill of terror running down the smaller man's spine. "Now what do you know?"

"As you instructed," the now chastised man continued "I took people who would not be missed, to avoid drawing attention. The one you see now saw what happened to those sent here. He did not know, but I believe he saw the one you seek."

"I cannot allow uncertainty." The armoured bandit smiled viciously. "Show me."

Before the fear could even begin to register on the traveller's face, the larger man had dismounted from the horse and grabbed hold of the wrist. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.

Veins crawled slowly from the man's bare bicep, and painfully slithered farther and farther towards where the armoured man held him by the wrist, where the flesh singed.

The man never even had a chance to cry out. The pain was so intense and so immediate that he couldn't even scream. He stood, frozen in place, hardly twitching for the agony filling his senses, penetrating every fibre of his being.

When the dark veins of the trapped arm reached the caught wrist, and spread into the hand, the armoured bandit drew a bare finger across the palm, drawing a line of viscous, purple blood.

The hand was dragged up over the larger man's head. He opened his mouth and let globs of the gelatinous fluid drip down his throat.

For a moment, the bandit's eyes flashed the colour of molten steel, but streaks of blood red flooded the eye, quickly burying the blazing yellow.

The two stood like this for several moments, more and more thick blood dripping into the scarred man's mouth as his victim twitched in unspeakable agony.

The tortured victim was eventually released. The moment the wrist fell from the larger man's grasp, the smaller man collapsed, writhing on the ground. His contorting limbs scraped the soil, and his throat finally loosened enough to release a single tortured scream.

The larger man, eyes now the dark brown that they were before this incident, walked over to the small group of other bandits. "Deal with that one." He said, jerked his head back at the pathetic, sobbing wretch behind him. Deep-set hatred clouded his features. "_He_ was here, and he left towards the town called Malamar."

"Then we will burn it to the ground" fanged smiles were spread around the few beings that could be seen, and the jubilation of those hiding nearby could be felt as clearly as the wind.

"No. _He _comes first. We cannot have the witches interfere yet. There is only one road in or out of that town. We will wait for him there." The man's smile now reflected those of the men around him. His voice rose in a crescendo, until it reached deafening volumes. "Then, we will burn that little town, and feast until not one heart still beats!"

Brutal, bestial war cries rose from the field, and dozens more flooded from around the landscape. The shadow that had settled around Charrow shifted, and faded to the horizon, towards the coast that lay miles away.

* * *

Author's note:

Next chapter will get back to the good stuff, and hopefully answer a few questions that some of you might have about Yura's past.


	16. Chapter 16:Unwanted Recollection

Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian

**Osrik is a character from Emu777's story Guardian. I have his personal permission to use Osrik, and have his approval on the interpretation of the character.**

**C****hapter ****S****ixteen**

**U****nwanted ****R****ecollection**

The departure of the _Ocean Spider_ didn't go nearly as smoothly as it appeared from the shore. Though the sails were unfurled successfully, and the anchor was raised, that was all that went right.

In tying the line for the main sail, Deneve severely tangled the steering rope. It was a small miracle that the ship turned right, out to the deeper water of the bay rather than turning the other way to slam into the docks.

Unable to find a proper latch point, Helen tried tying another line to the stack of food crates. A gust of wind in the sails snapped the line tight and broke one of the cables holding the food together. The stack started collapsing, and it was all Helen could do to hold the tide of wood encased food back from scattering all across the deck.

It took Helen and Clare to push the hefty crates back into place, and Osrik to tie them back up. The sail wasn't taken care of so easily. Yura and Cyrus spent several minutes struggling and fuming, and in the case of Cyrus, swearing, to disentangle Deneve's mess. Deneve's attempts to help from the rigging acted counter to most of their efforts.

Miria stood at the wheel, a simple task, though it did little good with the sail angled to catch the wind and push the ship in a different direction from the rudder. The ship slowly, invariably drifted left, towards the rocky cliffs that surrounded the bay.

The tangled line eventually had to be undone at the top, and redone after the disentangling was taken care of. It was just in time too, as the jagged cliffs of the bay rim were fast approaching. The rope snapped tight, and the sail reoriented to take the _Ocean Spider_ safely out of the bay.

Yura slumped against the railing with relief. "Well, one catastrophe averted. Good work Cyrus."

Rather than issuing any manner of polite reply, Cyrus quickly and properly tied off the rope, and stormed off to the cabins. "Damn amateurs," he grumbled beneath his breath. "Gonna get us killed at this rate. Why'd I sign on for this trip anyway? Just gonna get sunk off some sand bar or something dumb like that. Can't even bring my own liquor…" His grumblings trailed off as the door slammed shut behind him.

It was another hour before things were in good order. Most of the sails were arranged for a long voyage, and as long as the course adjustments were minor, which they should be by all rights, all that was needed was someone at the wheel.

"Well, that was fun." Yura yawned and stretched tiredly. "If you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap below deck."

"No problem" said Osrik. "We've got it under control. See you in the morning." Yura waved offhandedly as he opened the door and headed to the cabins.

As a fishing vessel, the accommodations weren't all that impressive.

The hallways were uncomfortable narrow, and there was the smell of sweat permeating every corner. "But that's what happens when you try and cram more than a dozen sailors into a small wooden room. They clearly haven't scrubbed this place down since it was put in dry dock." Yura scratched his head as he opened the door to his cabin.

The interior was lit by nothing more than a few cheap oil lamps fixed in the walls. The burning oil didn't help the stench.

Though a little bit cleaner, it wasn't much of an improvement. At least with the size of the crew they had, the room was all his.

Yura set his coat on the inner door knob, and crawled into the small bunk. He was never prone to sea sickness, and actually found the rocking of the ship soothing. Despite the poor sleeping environment, Yura quickly found himself drifting off to sleep.

Just before he drifted off to sleep, Yura found himself pondering the Yoma from Charrow, and the strange but uncomfortably familiar scent that clung to it…

* * *

As sleep claimed Yura, his final conscious thought of the day was pulled into his dreams. Rather than the mindless, random dreams that usually enter the sleeping mind, this one was much closer to a recollection, but deeper.

He found himself once more in Charrow, but not the one he had come from a short time ago. The Charrow that formed in his mind now was the town as it was many centuries ago. Back then, it was nothing more than a small castle town. The castle itself was well-built for the time, but the rock-and-mortar work would have been considered embarrassingly shoddy in the modern times.

As an outside observer, he watched a dream version of his old self walking the streets of this old town, called Burnsfeld at the time.

Wooden buildings, ranging from decent homes to simple lean-tos sprawled away from the castle in all directions, like a rash upon the landscape. That had been the first time Yura had ever come to Burnsfeld, and he hated it.

Yura recalled that it was the worst hub of human decay that he had ever witnessed. He liked humans, but sometimes they disgusted him. Human waste littered every alleyway, radiating its stench into the streets.

Vermin crawled everywhere, feeding on the detritus that the people just threw out. Farther from the castle, the homes were in the worst condition. The wood of some was rotting away, while others had countless rodent-chewed holes in them.

The quality of the castle itself clearly showed Yura that the man therein was rich, but the decay of the township showed how little he cared for his subjects. Though it was of little concern to Yura at the moment.

Out of respect for the human friends he had made in his first five hundred years of life, he tried to do what he could to improve the conditions wherever he saw the need, but failed miserably in this case. Yura recalled how hard he had tried, but the people seemed almost as if they didn't want to be helped.

As he watched the old version of himself, at the time appearing as a young man, walk through the town, looking for a road out, he recalled why he couldn't have stayed any longer. There had been killings in the town, by the hand of a Yoma.

It hadn't been him. He had tried to find it and deal with it himself, but his search had proved fruitless. This wasn't surprising. Yura was never very good at sensing Yoki.

Unfortunately, the search would have to end. The word on the street was that a Claymore was being called in, and Yura hadn't been willing to stick around.

He had been good enough to deal with common Yoma, as they fought on instinct, like animals. Once you learn how one fights, all of the others were very much the same. But though powerful, he hadn't been very skilled at fighting, even by human standards.

"_Yes, I really was weak back then, wasn't I?_" Yura thought as he watched his dream self wander the streets.

He remembered how he'd encountered a Claymore just a few months prior, and it hadn't ended well for either of them. The warrior was dead and Yura had just barely survived the battle. He had not been willing to risk another meeting. It was supposed to be a high ranking warrior this time too.

But as his dream self reached the edge of the buildings, and the stench of waste was blown away, a very different scent appeared on the breeze. It was familiar, yet the memory of it was very distant, hard to recall.

Yura stood there with his dream self for several minutes. At the time, he had wanted to follow that smell, so subtle that he would never have noticed it if it hadn't been for its familiarity. At the same time, he had also wanted to leave. Who knew when the Claymore would arrive?

Finally, with a glance at the rolling, grassy hills ahead, he turned and headed back into the festering pit of a city.

* * *

It was not long before the trail was lost to the odour of the city again. Yura had searched for the better part of an hour, guided only by the vague feeling that he was headed the right way.

Though utterly unskilled at sensing Yoki, he had not been completely oblivious to it. A rolling wave of it washed across him as he approached the castle. It was intense. The Yoki of the warrior he'd killed before was like a light breeze in the face of this hurricane. He had never felt such a strong Yoki before, or since, come to think of it.

Panicked, and even in those ages past, panic was a rare thing for him, he had looked behind him. Walking his way from the other end of the dusty street was a monster of a man. He wore armour across his shoulders, and had heavy bracers across his arms and legs. His chest was covered in a tight, white outfit, and from a sheath on his back hung a massive, silver blade.

The Claymore.

In desperation, Yura had jumped into the nearest dark alley. Ignoring the stench, he hid behind a mass of garbage, and hunched down as far as possible, trying to make himself as small as he could, less likely to be seen.

Yura looked at the dream scene contemplatively. "_Even now, it seems like the smart thing to do. I'm a lot stronger now, and I still don't think I could beat that man._"

He had imagined himself as a shell filled with water. He pictured the water pulling away from his skin, compressing inward until it was a small point within his chest.

This method was one he had developed to help him learn to tightly control his Yoki. As he imagined this, his Yoki was reduced, and as tightly controlled as it was possible to make it.

As hidden as it was possible to be, and with his Yoki as tightly restrained as he could make it at the time, Yura had calmed down, the fear fading into calm resolve. He hoped he hadn't been seen, but he was as mentally prepared as he could have been if he had been spotted.

He hadn't been the only person in the street, and of those, not the only one eager to get out of the way, so he shouldn't have stood out too much.

Yura had sensed it as the Claymore approached the alley, moving in slow, steady strides. From his darkened hiding place, Yura had seen clearly as that monstrous man passed across the face of the alley.

He stood a full head taller than the average man, with shoulders that were twice as wide as any man's Yura had ever seen. His skin was darker than that of most Claymore warriors and he had no hair atop his head.

His face was short and broad, with a large, angry mouth and a small nose that didn't extend far out from the rest of the face. His eyes were set so deep in their sockets that Yura couldn't see them from his angle, but he could still imagine their cold, silver gaze.

The man continued his pace without casting so much as a glance down the alley. Minutes later, the man's Yoki faded into the distance, and Yura's dream self breathed a sigh of relief and said "That was a little too close for comfort."

"Yes, it was." A cold, cruel voice spoke out from deeper within the alleyway. It chilled Yura like an icy wind.

A tall, thin man walked from deeper in the shadows into the dim light of the alleyway. He had a face like death itself. His skin was a pale, pasty white. His black eyes were sunken deep into the sockets, and his cheeks were the same. Even now, in remembrance, it sent a chill down Yura's spine.

A vicious smile crept across the man's face. "But now I can enjoy my meal in peace. And look, a second course has just walked into my lap."

The Yoma.


End file.
